President Eisler of Ferris State University sent an email to all students on June 17th, 2020, announcing Ferris will be raising tuition by $12 per credit hour for freshman and sophomore level courses and $18 per credit hour for junior and senior level courses. This is during a time of economic crisis because of the coronavirus pandemic, during which many students have been deeply impacted, not only financially, but emotionally and possibly physically. 

On June 26th, 2020, an email was sent to all students announcing that Ferris will return to in-person classes for the first part of the Fall 2020 semester, then will pivot to online classes November 30th. Although this may be necessary as we are anticipating a second wave of the virus around that time, many students have expressed their dislike of online learning, and how they do not feel like they learn as much by this method of delivery. No class at Ferris has been designed to switch to online learning halfway through a semester. Ferris students will be receiving a lower quality education for a higher tuition during a global pandemic and economic crisis. Simply put: this is not what we paid for.

President Eisler claims Ferris lost "greater than $30 million" due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to an article from the Ferris Torch on September 7th, 2018 by Cora Hall, "The total cost of building projects [for the] summer [of 2018] was $38.65 million." Also, President Eisler's total compensation for 2017 was "$368,425, which included a bonus of $58,500". His lawn care budget alone is $6,249. Yet, he expects broke college students to pay more for a lesser quality education during an economic crisis. ( source: fsutorch.com/2018/09/07/show-me-the-numbers/ ) 

We are calling for President Eisler and Ferris State University to freeze tuition, not raise it, for the Fall 2020 semester. They should follow in the footsteps of other similar universities in Michigan that have done the same (e.g. Central Michigan University, Oakland University, Western Michigan University, Saginaw Valley State University). Ferris- think of your students first.