College’s tuition going up $2 a credit hour

In-district tuition will go from $101 to $103 credit hour for the 2013-14 school year.

Full-time students who take a 16-credit-hour course load would pay $1,648 next school year, compared to $1,616 this year, a difference of $32.

“We try to keep tuition as low as possible,” President George Mihel said, “but we’re facing shortfalls from the state, so we had to do something.”

The college would do better to incrementally increase tuition every year over several years than to dramatically raise it from one year to another to compensate for a lack of funding, Mihel said.

Sauk has raised tuition all but one of the last 10 years, according to Sauk Valley Media archives. The college froze tuition at $99 in 2011-12, then raised it to $101 for 2012-13 before it increased it to $103 for 2013-14.

The $2 increase keeps Sauk comparable to community colleges in its conference and below the median among community colleges in the state, Mihel said.