CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Tuition is going up 10 percent at Columbia College Chicago next fall.
Columbia College Chicago has not increased tuition for the past two years, but now, according to President Kwang-Wu Kim, it will experience what he believes is the school’s largest percentage increase ever.
The Columbia Chronicle, the school newspaper, reported the tuition will rise by $2,660, equalling more than $29,000 a year for full-time students. Tuition for part-time students will also increase by 10 percent.
Additionally, the cost to live in residence halls will increase 2.5 percent. Exact numbers for each residence hall has yet to be discloused.
The good news is, according to the Chronicle, additional fees for instruction, registration, technology, the health center, and student activities will become standardized, costing $1,450 per year; but this does not include U-Pass fees. The college is also eliminating the $175 graduation fee.
Kim told the Chronicle the college is operating at a "very severe deficit", some planned and some related to unexpected pandemic costs.
“We’re really struggling right now,” Kim told the Chronicle. “I don’t want you to worry that that means the college is in trouble, because I can tell you we’re not, but there is so little to go around right now.”
Kim went on to say that the college relies on tuition for 85 percent of its revenue.
“Part of what this tuition increase is about is trying to move the college’s financial model to one which is sustainable over the long-term,” Kim told the Chronicle.
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