ASU is supporting an agreement with the Arizona Board of Regents that will require students exceeding 150 credit hours to pay a 20 percent surcharge of tuition costs starting next year.
That means an in-state undergraduate student - based on this year's tuition rates - would pay an additional $441. A nonresident undergraduate student would have to pay $1,510 more in tuition based on this year's tuition.
"We hope that ultimately students will stay on track to graduate and avoid the threshold and the increased tuition rate," said Scott Smith, director of state and local government relations at ASU.
ASU officials said they decided to go along with the measure to motivate students to move toward getting their degrees on time.
"There were individuals who believed there were a number of students who were not progressing toward their degrees and just taking classes," said ASU Senior Vice President Christine Wilkinson.
The credit hour cutoff will start out at 150 hours next year and drop to 145 the following year, Wilkinson said.
The average Arizona college student takes 4.7 years to graduate, but it's also common for students to take more than six years to graduate, according to ASU's Office of Institutional Analysis.
"The vast majority of students aren't slacking in any way, but just have a number of different reasons why they have more hours," Wilkinson said.
The tuition increase would apply to all resident and nonresident undergraduate students who pass the credit-hour threshold, but there are several exemptions.
The exceptions include students who are in a degree program that requires more than 150 hours, those with credits earned in the pursuit of a teaching certification and those pursuing more than one degree.
Transfer credits earned at another university, community college or private institution of higher education are also excluded.
So far, ASU is one of a small number of universities nationwide who have tried to implement a tuition increase for students who exceed a certain number of credit hours.
ABOR is holding tuition hearings open to the public on Nov. 20 and will make final decisions regarding the measure Nov. 30.
Reach the reporter at: Natalie.I.Hayes@asu.edu.
