Nursing, engineering and business students will pay more at University of Delaware

Beginning this fall, students at the University of Delaware’s nursing, engineering and business schools will have to pay more on top of their base tuition.

University of Delaware officials announced the tuition surcharge last week.

“We are always wanting to improve our great university and we are thinking about the types of investments and resources we need to have in place so we can attract amazing students and outstanding faculty and staff to instruct them, as well as develop great learning spaces,” said UD President Dennis Assanis.

Studies show the demand for these specific programs has grown significantly in recent years. Additionally, Assanis said the surcharge was driven by the fact that it costs more to educate students in these specific fields than it does for other majors.

“The extra money from the differential charge will go towards investing in the respective areas that essentially generate the resource. So it will not be invested across the entire university,” Assanis said. “They will help us attract additional faculty members to optimize more of the student-to-faculty ratios in those areas, and also to develop learning spaces, new environments for our students — new labs, new classrooms, interactive spaces.”

Phased in over three years, students at UD’s School of Nursing, Lerner College of Business and College of Engineering will pay an extra $1,000 per year, beginning this fall. That surcharge increases to $1,500 per year for nursing students, $2,500 for business and $4,000 for engineering by the fall of 2020.

Current students will receive a $250 credit per semester to offset the increase.

“Most of our competitors have already moved several years ago, and notably in recent years, to assess a differential charge over and above the base tuition,” Assanis said. “That’s what we’re doing now. We’re taking this step and we’re doing it with great care and judiciously. We are mindful of the fact that we want to keep education affordable.”

Assanis hopes to increase enrollment by more than a thousand students and hire up to 600 new faculty members over the next five to seven years.