That’s a pretty serious increase. Haven’t they heard about the student loan debt crisis?

The Detroit Free Press reported.

Oakland University hikes tuition 8.48%

Oakland University will raise tuition by 8.48% for the coming school year, joining Eastern Michigan University in giving up a portion of its state aid in exchange for a big increase in tuition dollars.

The tuition hike, approved by the Board of Trustees this afternoon, will mean Oakland will violate the state-imposed tuition cap of 3.2%. In doing so, the Rochester school will forfeit the performance-based portion of its state aid. That’s about $1.2 million. The tuition increase will bring in an additional $12 million over what the university would have gotten in tuition revenue if it had stayed at the cap. The overall budget is $253 million.

Eastern Michigan University raised its tuition 7.8%. All other Michigan public universities have stayed under the cap.

University President George Hynd presented the increase to the board and told reporters afterwards the university “has ambitious plans. Now we’ve got to deliver.

“This is an incredibly important time.”

The increase will cost an in-state freshman student about $30 per credit hour. That means the average sticker cost will climb from $11,460 to $12,491 for tuition for a year.

“We have a new president and a new strategic plan that lays out several initiatives for the coming year,” Oakland CFO John Beaghan told the Free Press in an interview before the board meeting. “There’s a need for funding those initiatives. In a time of relatively low funding from the state, it’s kind of tough to do that in any other way.”