ANN ARBOR—The University of Michigan Board of Regents approved at its April meeting the rates for residence hall room and board and apartment rentals for the 2007-08 academic year. The Division of Student Affairs annually submits a proposed rate schedule for regental consideration.

Students who live next academic year in U-M residence halls will pay an average of 4.9 percent more for room and board. The basic rate per student for a double room with a standard 13 meals per week board plan will be $8,190, an increase of $382 from 2006-07.

Northwood Community Apartments monthly rental rates for graduate students and students with families will increase by an average of 2 percent; the cost of an unfurnished unit will range from $724 for an economy 1-bedroom to $1,158 for an air-conditioned three-bedroom town house.

The rate-setting reflects months of financial planning by University Housing and University business staff. For the coming year, 2 percent of the increase will be allocated to fund Residential Life Initiative projects, and an additional .8 percent supplements the expenditures devoted to annual capital projects. The remaining 2.1 percent of the increase is accounted for by inflationary and cost-of-living increases, primarily in utilities and salaries and wages.

“In determining our rates for the coming year, we benefited from a stabilizing of the cost of utilities,” said Carole S. Henry, assistant vice president for student affairs and director of University Housing. “We continue to be primarily focused on investing in facility improvements that positively affect the quality of our students’ residential and dining experience.”

The University’s Residential Life Initiatives (RLI), designed to renew, revitalize, and modernize campus residential facilities, entered a new phase in May 2006 when Mosher-Jordan Hall closed for two years, the first U-M residence hall ever to undergo a comprehensive renewal and renovation. Construction has also begun on the adjacent new Hill Dining Center.

Both facilities are slated to open in late August 2008. The Bursley emporium, University Housing’s most extensive new dining construction in several decades, opened in September 2006. New fire alarms and sprinkler systems have been installed in 16 and 5 halls respectively as part of a $50 million life and fire safety upgrade that will be completed in all halls by 2011.

University Housing developed its 2007-08 rate increases in collaboration with key University business offices, the Residence Halls Association, and the Northwood Community Apartments Rate Review Committee.