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College of Lake County tuition and fee rate rising

College of Lake County trustees Tuesday night approved boosting the credit-hour tuition and fee rate for the 2012-13 academic year.

Board members voted 5-2 to hike the credit-hour tuition and fees from $109 to $112. The extra $3 is attributed to a new capital fee.

Trustees Barbara Oilschlager and Lynda Paul objected to the increase. Oilschlager said she’s always concerned about Grayslake-based CLC becoming less accessible to students by raising their costs.

Oilschlager said the college recently committed to borrowing nearly $20 million through a bond sale for its Lakeshore Campus in Waukegan and has other projects in the works. She said officials need to explore cost-cutting measures and not continue to raise student costs.

“It just seems to me we’re getting ourselves in a spend, spend, spend kind of mode,” Oilschlager said.

Student Trustee Nathan Wegbreit said CLC’s student government association supports the $3 capital fee, but doesn’t want it to go beyond $6.

Elected officials voted 7-0 in favor of holding the line on the fees charged for 398 credit courses, while hiking 45 others and keeping a $1 facility fee on all event tickets sold to the James Lumber Center for the Performing Arts. Ten credit courses will drop in cost starting in the fall.

Among the courses with fee increases are automotive welding and refinishing, going from $35 to $65 due to the supply costs. Urban forestry management will rise from $20 to $40, with supplies also the stated reason.

Conversely, a reduction in supply costs will bring computer landscape design from $40 to $20. The college also cited the removal of a laboratory fee for dropping the current $5 charge for introduction to evolution.

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