The IU Board of Trustees approved the decision to increase the standard room and board rate for the 2023-2024 academic year because of inflation’s impact on Residential Programs and Services. According to News at IU, the 1.34% increase equals to $157 per year.
According to RPS 2022-2023 Cost Breakdown, students living in standard dorms without air conditioning pay an average of $6,821 per year and students living in standard dorms with air conditioning pay an average between $7,798 to $7,844.. Students living in enhanced dorms pay an average between $10,030 to $10,422.
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“We need to pay for the operations of Residential Programs and Services, so paying employee salaries, paying for the cost of food, repair, maintenance, utilities — all those things,” IU treasurer Don Lukes said. “We have a significant amount of debt on the residence halls, and we try to fund repairment and rehabilitation projects each year.”
Rates for enhanced rooms, which are suites and apartments with shared full bathrooms, will increase by 4% because of the high demand of students preferring to live in those rooms and the cost of operations, Luke said.
“Inflation is really impacting the entire system,” Lukes said. “There isn’t really one area of cost that hasn’t been touched by inflation in some degree, but when we’re looking at rates, we’re looking at the system holistically.”
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Residential Programs and Services has already been fighting inflation through the new all-you-care-to-eat dining meal system where students have unlimited swipes of entry and unrestricted servings of foods, according to IU Dining. This system is used at five dining halls: Collins Living Learning Center, Forest Quad, Goodbody Hall, McNutt Quad and Wright Quad. To help the university continue to navigate food cost inflation, Lukes said the price of the meal plan will increase by 4%.
Residential assistant Jace Rusznak said he suggests students take advantage of the residential fees by attending events hosted by RAs of their floor or building.
“Every RA is expected to host programming for their residents, typically about once a month, and turn out for those has always been low across all campuses. But that is the best way to connect with not only your RA, but the other people that live on campus,” Rusznak said. “I think it’s a really great way to meet other people that’s funded for by your student living fees.”
IU freshman Daniel Mitchell, an economic consulting and business analytics major, said certain fees should be optional and recommends students to review what the fees included in their tuition pays for.
“Take advantage of the things that you’re paying for and go through your bill and see what you’re paying for because you might not have realized you had it,” Mitchell said.
