(Indianapolis, IN) – The Ivy Tech Community College (The College) State Board of Trustees on Thursday passed the College’s tuition and fees for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 academic years.
The end result will be lower tuition and fees for about two-thirds of the College’s students, and Ivy Tech remains the lowest tuition in the State of Indiana with the lowest overall cost of attendance.
“The College takes its commitment to student affordability seriously, and we look for ways to reduce overall college costs for students in a transparent and equitable way,” President Sue Ellspermann said. “Our Ivy+ Tuition and Textbooks model saves students money by providing summer flex scholarships and leveraging our purchasing power to reduce textbook costs.”
Ivy Tech uses a banded tuition structure, which means students enrolling in 12 or more credit hours pay the same tuition regardless of the number of credits in which they enroll.
This structure encourages students to graduate faster, improve their academic performance, and reduce the overall cost of their education.
Banded tuition and mandatory fees for 2023-2024 will go from $2,318.25 per semester to $2,455.76 for 2023-2024 and $2,577.11 for 2024-2025.
Ivy Tech is changing the structure of two fees to be incorporated into the tuition rate for 2023-24; those include a $75 per semester mandatory technology fee and a $20 per credit hour distance education fee for select modalities including classes taught through IvyOnline. Students will no longer be charged separate fees for these.
This fee structure will improve transparency in costs and provide equity in how tuition and fees are applied across student populations. This will create savings for many students as this fee had historically been charged to all students rather than being proportional to the number of credits in which a student was enrolled.
The $20 per credit hour distance education fee for select modalities including classes taught through IvyOnline is also eliminated. This fee was charged to 75 percent of students in the past academic year.
Ivy Tech has found many innovative ways to save students on the overall cost of college; some examples include frozen tuition and free textbooks for the past two academic years. For the 2023-2024 academic year, students will pay $17 per credit hour for all textbooks and that cost will be reduced to $16.50 in the following year. This model will save Ivy Tech students more than $17 million dollars annually in textbook costs.
Additionally, federal and state financial aid has been increasing, so students with the most financial need will still have a free community college in Indiana.
The federal Pell Grant provides students with up to $3,698 per semester ($7,395 per year), which is more than the proposed Ivy Tech tuition and fees.
Additionally, the State of Indiana has generous financial aid programs for students, including the Frank O’Bannon Award, which provides students at Ivy Tech with up to $2,350 per semester ($4,700 per year), the 21st Century Scholars Award, which covers full tuition and fees, the Adult Student Grant, and the Workforce Ready Grant.
These programs combined with Ivy Tech’s commitment to affordability help four out of every five Ivy Tech students complete with no debt.
(Ivy Tech Community College press release)
