Incoming NIU students can expect to pay around $20 more per credit hour.

The Board of Trustees approved the tuition rates for Fiscal Year 2010 at the June 25 meeting.

The tuition increases are based on the best guess for NIU’s financial need, NIU President John Peters said. The amount of funding the university will receive from the state is not yet finalized, he said.

“It makes me uncomfortable as I know it does for all of you to make these types of monumental decisions without full information, but we’ve waited as long as we can,” Peters said. “We owe it to incoming students to state the new rate as soon as possible.”

The in-state undergraduate tuition rate increased from $224 to $242 for students taking 15 or more credit hours, according to literature from the June 25 BOT meeting. Average tuition was raised around eight percent across the board.

A full-time undergraduate student can expect to pay $270 more in tuition per semester, according to the literature. Graduate tuition increased $20 per credit hour from $254 to $274 and Law tuition increased from $483 to $521 per credit hour.

“We’re looking at reduced funding,” Peters said. “We’re temporarily propped up next year by the $6 million investment from the stimulus dollars.”

Students that are not Illinois residents will pay twice the in-state tuition cost, according to the literature.

Incoming college students pay a locked-in tuition rate for eight semesters under the Illinois Truth-in-Tuition act, according to the Illinois Government News Network. NIU extends the locked-in rate for an additional semester, according to the NIU Office of Enrollment Services Web site.

“It’s going to be tight this year, but next year it’s going to be that plus whatever reductions we might get [from the state],” Peters said.