In past years SIU School of Law students could obtain two degrees without increasing their tuition, though now the extra education comes with a cost.

At the end of the last academic year, the cap on tuition for graduate students studying law was removed.

The School of Law and the Physician Assistant program are the only SIU programs that require students to pay additional costs for taking more than 15 credit hours a semester.

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A law degree is offered only to graduate students at SIU, which sets the school apart from other departments.

In previous years there was a cap that gave law students a fixed rate after its credits. This year, law students are charged the school’s tuition rate, $477.50, for each additional credit hour.

Cynthia Fountaine, the dean of the School of Law, said the reason the SIU Board of Trustees approved the removal of the cap was because the graduate law school functions on a different budget model than other departments.

“We rely on tuition to operate,” she said. “Over the last few years, state allocation for law school has decreased. So uncapping credit hours helps us cover costs.”

Fountaine also said without the additional money, there would not be funding for the Women in Leadership program and the Business Boot Camp organization.

She said the School of Law previously capped credit hours because the department received 75 percent of its budget from state funding. Over the past years those numbers have dwindled, forcing the school to compensate by raising tuition.

Fountaine said the cap does not affect students’ ability to graduate on time.

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“A vast majority of students graduate with 15 credits per semester,” she said.

Therefore, students can obtain degrees in the expected three years of studying, but the cap is an obstacle for law students who plan to take additional credits.

Patrick Hunn, a graduate student from St. Charles studying law, said the main draw for studying law at the university was having the opportunity to obtain two degrees for the price of one, or graduate early.

“The options [this year] are to take out extra loans to cover the cost,” he said. “The only alternative to that is paying for overtime classes out of pocket, and that has a big impact on how much law students spend.”

In order to graduate on time with a second degree, a student would have to take 20 credit hours or more. With the change, obtaining two degrees in three years will cost students around $2,300 more each semester.

Fountaine said although students are charged extra, the school wants to keep tuition inexpensive.

“The goal of the law school is to keep tuition low for students,” she said. “Even with the removal of the cap, SIU is still the most inexpensive law school in Illinois.”

Muriel Berry can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @muriel_berry_deor at 536-3311 ext. 254