Post updated at 8:51 p.m. Thursday, June 20:
The Kansas Board of Regents on Thursday approved tuition increases for most of the state’s public universities, including KU.
A full-time resident undergraduate student at the University of Kansas will pay $6,142 per semester — or $12,284 per year — in tuition and fees for the 2024-25 school year.
KU will increase tuition by 3.5%, across the board for resident and nonresident, undergraduate and graduate students. That’s $186 more per semester for a resident undergrad, and $495 more for a nonresident undergrad.
At KU’s Lawrence campus, student fees will increase by $292, or 5%, for resident undergrads, and by $601, or 4.1%, for nonresident undergrads.
Fees will increase by $228, or 3.9%, for resident grad students and by $485, or 3.7%, for nonresident grad students at the Lawrence campus.
The numbers represent a 10% total increase since 2020 — to $6,142 in 2025 from $5,583 in 2020 per semester for all tuition and fees for resident, undergraduate students — according to a presentation to the board.
This table shows tuition and fee changes at all the KBOR universities (click here to open it in a new tab):
FY-2025-KBOR-universities-tuition-changesSome specific courses at KU will see increased costs per credit hour. Courses in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – School of the Arts will increase by $12.20 per credit hour; the School of Journalism and Mass Communications by $10; the School of Law by $50; and the School of Social Welfare by $7.50.
A 27-page proposal outlines changes to tuitions in various schools, courses and degrees (click here to open it in a new tab):
FY-2025-KU-tuition-proposal“Leadership is committed to keeping student tuition and fees as low as possible while still maintaining the highest quality of educational programs,” KU’s proposal states. “The University of Kansas carefully considered its educational programs and associated funding requirements throughout this legislative session.”
Regent Wint Winter, of Lawrence, said state universities in the last five years have cut their spending by $219 million and have reduced employee headcount by 675 full-time equivalent positions.
“I think it’s important, if we’re asking students to pay more, then are we doing our job to cut costs, to hold expenses where we can?” Winter said. “The answer to that is yes.”
He also said financial aid support available to students has increased fourfold, to $97 million for 2024 from $24 million in 2021.
The only university to decrease its fees was Emporia State University. ESU also left its tuition flat.
The Kansas Board of Regents oversees public higher educational institutions in the state. Its board includes nine members appointed by the governor. See future meeting dates and agendas at this link.
See the full meeting agenda at this link, and fee and tuition proposals from all universities at this link.
Note: This post has been corrected from a previous version.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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