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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Regents Approve Tuition & Fee Rates for 2019-20

SPEARFISH, S.D. – The South Dakota Board of Regents this week approved tuition and mandatory fees for the upcoming academic year. The impact to students in the public university system is an average cost increase of $300.27 per year, or 3.4 percent.

“Tuition setting is always a balancing act, and this adjustment to tuition and mandatory fees attempts to keep cost to our students as low as possible,” said Regents President Kevin V. Schieffer.

There are a number of fixed costs that impact tuition and fee rates, including salary policy and benefits. This year, the legislature adopted a 2.5 percent salary policy for all employees, while the employer-paid health care benefit cost increased by $1,601 for each employee. The state covers less than half of this salary and benefit package for employees in the public university system, so tuition, fees, and student charges must be raised internally to cover the remainder of that obligation.

Additionally, South Dakota State University requested and was granted a $2.70 per credit hour tuition increase for all on-campus credits to support student activities.

Inflation also impacts the costs incurred by the university system. However, to hold student cost increases to a minimum this year, no inflationary increase on universities’ operating expenses was included in the FY20 tuition and fee rates.

On average, an in-state undergraduate student taking 30 credit hours next year will pay $9,250.82 for tuition and mandatory fees. These new rates are effective for the 2019-20 academic year that begins this summer.