MSSU governing board approves tuition hike

John Hacker, The Joplin Globe, Mo.
·3 min read

Jun. 8—Missouri Southern students will pay more to attend the university starting this fall.

The Board of Governors on Thursday approved a 4.66% tuition hike, raising the standard in-state tuition rate per credit hour from $267.53 to $280 in the coming school year.

Linda Eis, MSSU chief financial officer, said the university faces rising costs of operation, but it also takes into consideration the demographics of the region it serves when deciding how much to raise tuition.

"We want to be fair to our students and serve the region we are part of," she said. "So when we look at that, the (Consumer Price Index) was actually at 6.5%, so we're well below that. We're not immune to those increases, just like any other industry. The utility increases have been fairly significant. They had some additional fuel charges they had to layer on. We've had some rate increases. We have seen some utility cost increases with increased residency in the residents halls, which is a great thing. It is a very good thing, but it is an additional cost we have to take into account."

It was noted that MSSU will seen an increase in core funding from the state of about $1.9 million if Gov. Mike Parson signs the state budget as passed by the Missouri House and Senate.

"We're always so thankful to see that coming in from the state, it is a 7% increase to Missouri Southern," Eis said. "Then we've got $7.5 million coming to the Health Science Innovation Center."

The Health Science Innovation Center is a planned new building to advance Missouri Southern's health education programs and provide more opportunities for MSSU students in the growing fields of health care.

Eis said the university is in a strong financial position coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and the chaos that caused.

Emeritus status

The board also approved elevating four recently retired professors to professor emeritus status, and honored them at Thursday's meeting.

The four are Charles Curtis, a math professor; Michael Fletcher, an environmental sciences professor; Terry Marion, professor of management; and Chris Moos, a member of the international business faculty.

—Kerry Johnson, who chairs the mathematics department, said Curtis had worked at Missouri Southern for over 30 years and had "taught practically every math class we offered, and helped develop the ones he didn't teach."

—Jason Willand, who chairs the biology and environmental health department, said Fletcher taught at Southern for 26 years and "was the reason we have such a successful online program for our environmental health program in addition to the on-campus program.

—Thomas Schmidt, interim dean of the Plaster School of Business, said Marion started with Missouri Southern in 1976, "then took a leave of absence to work at EaglePicher Industries and then thought he needed to come back to Missouri Southern, so he worked here for another 29 years."

—Schmidt also introduced Moos with a long list of international accomplishments and talked about how he "took a lot of students overseas, 196 in fact, going overseas 15 times to nine different countries."