The West Virginia University Board of Governors agreed Friday to keep base tuition and fees for the fall semester at 2019 levels.
The action, which won’t be formalized until BOG adopts next year’s budget in June, keeps tuition at $8,976 for residents of West Virginia while tuition for out-of-state students — including fees — will remain at $25,320. There will be a 3% increase, however, in dining and housing plans with exception of housing at West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley.
In addition, the university is looking at having in-person classes at each of its three campuses for the fall semester.
“We’re planning as we move into fall,” said WVU Vice President for Strategic Initiatives Rob Alsop, adding this includes doing increased testing for COVID-19 and having ample protective gear.
“We want to make sure the students, faculty and community are protected,” he said.
Provost Maryanne Reed said the university is looking at making changes to its instructional delivery to reduce human density.
“But we also know that the COVID-19 pandemic will still be with us through the fall and possibly next spring and so we also must be prepared to respond should there be another surge of the virus that interrupts instruction and other campus activities,” she said.
The university said late last month it was facing a potential $30 million shortfall brought on by the coronavirus and said as a result it was considering temporary furloughs of employees in Morgantown, Beckley and Keyser. The first round would be May 23 through June 28, while the second and longer scenario would last from May 23 to July 26.
No decision was made by BOG at Friday’s meeting. Alsop said discussions are continuing and decisions will be made over the next several weeks.
Also, Reed said fall enrollment is down slightly from last year, which was not surprising considering registration started two weeks later than normal.
“The number of students who withdrew from the spring semester altogether and have not registered for fall was down 50%.”
In other business, BOG approved several new graduate certificates: Adult Gerontology Acute Care in the School of Nursing; Health Data Science in the School of Public Health; and Linguistics, Spanish and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.
The board also approved:
- Changing the current master of science degrees and major in industrial relations to human resource management in the Chambers College of Business and Economics.
- Approved a new bachelor of science degree and major in youth and family sciences in the College of Education and Human Services.
- Approved a new integrated marketing communications degree jointly in the Chambers College and the Reed College of Media.
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