Miami University

New tuition plan successful

07/29/2004

Miami University officials say the school's new tuition and scholarship plan for Ohio residents exceeded expectations in its first year of operation.

Miami last year adopted a tuition and scholarship model with one tuition for all students but providing generous scholarships for Ohio students set according to need, as a way to help middle- and lower-income Ohio students afford college.

Under the plan, incoming freshmen from Ohio this fall will receive $25.5 million in two renewable scholarships. The Ohio Resident Scholarship of $5,000 is indexed to state subsidy and fixed for all Ohio freshmen, and the Ohio Leader Scholarship varies from $5,000 to $6,200 for each student. These scholarships are applied against Miami’s tuition of $19,600 annually.

Miami officials set a target goal in the first year of reducing costs for one-third of Ohio first-year students under the new plan. As it turns out, 40 percent of in-state freshmen will pay less this fall than under the old tuition system and another 23 percent will pay about the same, said President James Garland.

“We’ve been especially pleased by the reaction from students in those target groups who we knew would benefit from the plan,” said Garland. “Our applications from first-generation college students-those whose parents never graduated from college-shot up more than 25 percent, as did applications from minority students.

“We were able to reduce costs for Ohio students from families with incomes as high as $110,000 a year, in assisting middle-income families who do not qualify for conventional aid and yet might be struggling to put one or more children through college,” added Garland.

Miami officials had expected a decrease in applications the first year, in anticipating confusion or uncertainty about the new plan, Garland admitted. Instead, applications were up 8 percent to an all-time record of nearly 15,000. More than 30 percent of those applications came from students who scored in the top 10 percent among high school seniors on standardized tests.

The university initially planned for a freshman class of 3,450 but has more than 3,600 confirmations from incoming freshmen. Confirmations are up 4 percent from Ohio residents and 50 percent among minority freshmen, noted Garland.

The new plan also has generated considerable interest from colleges and regents in other states. Representatives from other schools have visited campus to gather information, the plan has been applauded by the presidents of the American Council on Education (ACE) and the Mellon Foundation, and Garland was a featured panelist at the ACE annual convention last winter.