SIU Trustees approved tuition and fee increases for next academic year during their meeting Thursday on the Carbondale campus.
New students at SIU Edwardsville will see a two-percent increase in tuition, while the Carbondale campus is keeping tuition flat for another year.
The fee increase for Carbondale will be two-point-six percent, while Edwardsville's increase will be five-percent.
SIU’s Board of Trustees Thursday also approved agreements clearing the way for a new multimillion-dollar research and economic development hub, capitalizing on SIU-Carbondale’s research into food, fermentation and biotechnology.
Fermentation Science Institute director Matt McCarroll says the Illinois Food, Entrepreneurship, Research, and Manufacturing Hub -- or I-FERM -- is aimed at solving food/nutrition, agriculture and health challenges through research, innovation and education.
He says the suite, at the McLafferty Annex on the Carbondale campus, will include a Biotechnology Core Laboratory, an Analytical Core Laboratory, a Business Support Annex and a Value-Added Agriculture Pilot Facility.
"This project will help the University finally realize the full potential and promise of McLafferty Annex, which was approved the SIU Board of Trustees in 2012, to become a centerpiece of research activities for the University."
It's hoped centralizing much of the university’s research equipment in McLafferty Annex will help the university receive more research grant money.
It'll be staffed by current university scientists and researchers.
