Current UH-Hilo on-campus housing rates range from $1,388.29 to $4,283.38 per semester.
BY COLIN M. STEWART
STEPHENS MEDIA
HILO — University of Hawaii at Hilo students face a 28 percent housing rate increase over five years if Board of Regents members approve a proposal before them on Thursday.
Also set for a vote is a proposal to set housing rates for Phase I of UH-Hilo’s University Village, which is scheduled for groundbreaking in the spring of 2012 and would be ready to open in the fall of 2013.
The campuswide increase would see the rates at each of UH-Hilo’s on-campus facilities jump by 5 percent each year from the fall of 2012 through the fall of 2016. The proposal represents Hilo’s first housing rate increase since 2007, said University Relations Director Gerald De Mello.
De Mello said the increases are necessary, in part, to help fund the construction of Phase I of the Hilo campus’ University Village. The additional revenue would also be used to provide enhancements for educational, social and cultural programming, as well as covering additional costs associated with maintenance and providing more utilities, salaries, services and supplies for the new housing.
Current UH-Hilo on-campus housing rates range from $1,388.29 to $4,283.38 per semester.