The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors agreed to increase tuition and fees for the 2024-2025 school year. In their annual meeting Tuesday, the board agreed to increase tuition for both in state and out of state students by 2.9 percent. This increase is lower than last year’s increase.
Room and board rates will also go up this year. Students choosing to live on the Blacksburg campus will pay an average of 5.2 percent more than last year, about $600 more.
The board also agreed to increase tuition for the Virginia Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine and Carillion School of Medicine.
Some of the reasons given for these increases were faculty and staff compensation, state mandated health care rate increases, and student financial aid support.
Not long after these increases were decided, 12 student protestors interrupted the meeting, asking the university to take a stand in the Israel and Hamas war. “We want them to take this seriously. We want them to call for a ceasefire,” said one student protestor who didn’t want to give her name, because she fears retaliation from the university.
During the interruption, President Timothy Sands addressed the protestors, saying “Thank you. We have heard you. We need to continue the meeting," Sands said.
Police officers escorted protestors outside the boardroom, but no arrests were made.
After they left the meeting room, Sands made a response to the board, saying he doesn’t feel it's appropriate for any university to take political stands. Sands said there are several ongoing discussions at Virginia Tech and other academic institutions across the country that relate to this issue.
“One of those is institution neutrality,” Sands said. “And its relationship with free speech. And the ability to pursue academic inquiry, freely, without having an institution take a side. And therefore squash the debate.”
Similar debates on whether academic institutions should take a stand on the Israel and Hamas war are ongoing at colleges and universities across the country, including how universities should protect students with religious or family ties to Israel or Palestine.
