Just keep pumping up that higher ed bubble, it’ll never burst.

The Columbus Dispatch reports.

Ohio University may increase tuition, fees to offset budget deficit

Ohio University is talking about raising tuition and fees for incoming freshmen in fall 2016.

An OU budget advisory committee voted last Friday to recommend raising tuition by 1.7 percent, increasing the fee for out-of state students by 5.5 percent, and increasing the charges for room and board by 3.5 percent and 2 percent, respectively.

The committee’s recommendation now will go to the OU Board of Trustees, which plans to vote on the increases at its Jan. 22 meeting.

Only next year’s freshmen would pay the new, higher tuition rate of $10,715 per year. Starting with the 2015-16 incoming class, OU began to guarantee that tuition and fees would stay the same for four years.

If the new charges are approved, the additional fee paid by out-of-state students would rise from $8,964 to $9,457.

The tuition and fee increases would bring in an extra $3.4 million. That’s timely because the budget committee also discussed last Friday a projected $24 million budget hole for fiscal year 2017 if the university were to fund all of its current wishes and plans.

The committee started looking at the budget for next year in October, which is several months earlier than OU has ever started budgeting and planning for future years.