On April 21st, 2025, Roger Williams University’s student senate welcomed Vice President of Student Life, John King, to talk about tuition, room, and board increases.

This meeting was a product of semester-long conversations between various committees of the senate and John King to clarify the increasing prices of the university. Within the conversation, King covered not only why prices are increasing but also provided updates to the former Baypoint residence hall and proposed changes to the Cedar residency hall. After King’s presentation, the student senate passed two pieces of legislation; one bill combining the senate sustainability committee and the committee of student life, and the other bill changed the academic affairs committee to a council, opening up the committee to students outside of the senate.

According to John King, from 2012 to 2018, the university implemented a program called affordable excellence, which kept the rates of tuition the same over 4 years for students within that cohort. The program ended in 2018, and with it, the university attempted to reassess the balance between room and board prices and tuition prices. This program left RWU’s tuition prices behind compared to other universities in the area, and so within the 24-25 academic year, tuition increases hit a rate of 4%. Looking forward to the 25/26 academic year, this rate was lowered to a 3.5% increase, cementing the university as the 4th lowest tuition rate within the comparison to the 9 schools in the area.

For the 25/26 academic year, there is a 2.5% increase in the cost of rooms across the school. In comparison, the 24/25 academic year held a 1.5% increase in rooms across campus. When comparing the cost of rooms at the 9 universities, King used the price of a standard double room. When implementing the 2.5% increase for every type of room, whether it’s a room in the North Residence Hall or Willow Residence Hall, each room will get a 2.5% increase on top of the room-specific pricing. 

“We’ve had some interesting conversations, both with the Student Life committee, where we took a deep dive into food costs and taking a look at what’s influencing, you know, the rates, and also what was influencing some of the cuts in service hours that we saw this semester to balance the food budget. So in a nutshell, no surprise to anybody here that since 2020 and in particular, since 2022, food costs have gone up through the roof. We’re seeing about a 4% increase in food costs now, “ said King. 

According to King, since 2020, the university’s food costs have increased by 26%, while the room costs have only increased by 13%. This puts a strain on the university’s funding for commons workers and food as the university hopes to keep board costs low. 

“So when you add that in, you can see that we try to decrease the increases to the board rate as much as possible to keep it affordable. But at the same time, that does mean some sacrifices in hours and types of offerings. So we’re just trying to maneuver that, because if we were to pass on the real costs, then we’d be looking at probably about 8% a year. What would increase, which is tough, really tough to navigate for families and students. “Said King. 

Some of these sacrifices are planning to hit retail shops on campus, like lower commons or the hawk’s nest. The university plans on cutting hours and labor where they can to make sure that it’s paying its employees fairly and students aren’t burdened with paying the difference. 

“Retail is a little bit different. We try to manage retail on a break-even basis. We’re not out to make any profit at all on retail to subsidize, for instance, our labor costs. But I think we’ll take a close look. I would imagine that [the Starbucks at] GHH will go back to its regular hours, but some of the other decisions that we’ve made, just based on the data, will probably stay the same. So that means Cafe Express not being open on Fridays, closing a little bit earlier during the week, and the limited hours at Hawks Nest. Hawks Nest was losing money, and we can’t and so in simple terms, right? If we have one, let’s call it a cafe, a restaurant, or a retail place. We have one that’s losing money, that means we have to borrow from a place such as our retail, our residential meal plan, to subsidize that, and I don’t like to do that, because it takes away from the value and the satisfaction of that residential”

Student Senate member Ryan Lukowicz suggested making an advisory committee with a group of students to best navigate these cuts and advise, from a student perspective, when it’s best to open retail shops like the Hawk’s Nest. John King responded, saying that he hopes the student senate could be involved in that process next year. 

According to King, the Cedar residency hall remains the number one priority when it comes to improving housing on campus. This year, the administration has attempted to plan out options for the upgrades they want to bring to the Cedar. Through the process, the school has decided to change and modernize the bathrooms throughout the building and open up the common rooms in the middle of the building. Currently, as the campus is building the student center and improving the dining hall, the cedar improvements don’t have funding yet, but John King assures the students that as soon as those two projects are completed, there will be funding for cedar. 

Alongside Cedar, John King provided updates on the former Baypoint residence hall. Although the university is not currently using the Baypoint facility, it is renting out the facility to make the most out of the land.   

“It breaks my heart that Baypoint isn’t open, but when we assess the ability of building and what we need to put into it to bring it up to speed, it has a $13 million price tag. So we made a qualitative decision: should we invest $13 million across the bridge with all the headaches that come with the shuttle delays, or invest in the Campus Center and invest in this campus? We just made a strategic decision that we thought we would be better off investing in Bristol on this side of the bridge and not over there,” explained John King. 

In an attempt to utilize the land effectively, the university has agreed with an architectural firm to create some renderings of what the Baypoint facility could look like if it were used for housing for residents of Portsmouth. One of these possible renders will reinvent Baypoint into an affordable housing complex. Currently, the town of Portsmouth is at 2.6% affordable housing, which is well below the state’s 10% requirement. If the university decides to go with the affordable housing option, it will open up housing opportunities for both graduate and law students. 

Senate Legislation

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