University of Toledo to freeze tuition, offer discounts on housing for some students

The University of Toledo will freeze tuition and fees for next year, as well as offer free housing for some transfer students and discounts for some current freshmen who agree to live on campus next year as sophomores.

University officials announced the freeze and the housing discounts at a press conference this morning at the Crossings residence hall. The goals include helping retain students at UT and getting enough students to live on-campus to potentially reopen the residence halls that were closed this year.

Besides tuition and general fees, the freeze affects housing prices and meal plans.

Transfer students for 2013 spring semester will receive free on-campus housing if they are enrolled full-time and transfer in with 12 or more credit hours.

Kaye Patten Wallace, vice president for the student experience, said the transfer student deal is a “one semester initiative.”

As another housing initiative, current freshmen can receive a 25 percent discount on on-campus housing next year if they receive a 2.5 GPA or higher this year before becoming an academic sophomore.

Patten Wallace said this offering was “designed to improve or increase the retention rate from our freshmen to sophomore year.”

Larry Burns, vice president for external affairs, said all of these initiatives are a university effort for “making college education a reality.”

“To my knowledge … we have not heard of any other schools using the transfer incentive for one semester of free housing or the discount rate for returning students,” Burns said.

Burns said he hopes the housing discounts will allow the university to reopen Dowd, Nash, White and MacKinnon residence halls, which were closed this fall. The number of students living on-campus fell from about 3,700 last year to about 3,200 this fall.

This story will be updated at a later time.