Ashland University says it's cutting tuition by more than 10-thousand dollars for the following academic year in an effort to make higher education more accessible to students. The move means tuition for students will be 19 thousand dollars next year. University president Fred Finks says the school will not cut programs or staff, but will reallocate 4.2 million dollars toward the tuition decrease.
Finks says university officials felt they couldn't continue to raise tuition and add to rising student debt – and prospective students and parents were being put off by the "sticker shock" of tuition costs. The university's announcement came less than a week after President Obama suggested an overhaul of federal student aid saying that higher education shouldn't be a luxury.