The Northern Illinois Univeristy Board of Trustees approved several major fiscal measures at its latest meeting Thursday.
First, they approved a fiscal year 2022 budget request of $98.9 million. This is compared to $93.6 million last fiscal year. They also approved several cost changes for students. Chief among them is a new 80 cent per credit hour fee for culture and diversity programming. President Lisa Freeman said the money will help attract “high value” speakers that a lone student organization couldn’t bring in on its own.
“And the kind of speakers that would really generate interest across the university, bring together students from different backgrounds, and then compliment that speaker with some type of out-of-the-classroom learning activity to capitalize on what was said.”