Tuition will increase for College of DuPage students next year.

Glen Ellyn community college officials voted 5-2 Tuesday to raise tuition $4 per credit hour. Under the proposal, students will pay $103.15 per credit hour, compared to $99.15 per credit hour in 2012. The $4 increase will also affect tuition rates for out-of-district and out-of-state students, who will pay $290.15 and $360.15 per credit hour, respectively. Most courses are at least three credit hours.

School administrators said the increase is necessary because of unreliable funding from the state, a decrease in the number of credit hours students are enrolling in, an anticipated decrease in property tax revenue and an increase in salaries as a result of union negotiations.

Student fees including technology, construction and student activity were not increased under the motion.

The board’s student trustee, Lydia Whitten, and Trustee Kim Savage voted no, while Trustee Joseph Wozniak abstained from voting.

Savage said the board had previously discussed not increasing tuition if the college received at least four payments from the state. Since it has received them, “I would not like to see us raise the four dollars on what we have now,” Savage said.

Board president David Carlin said the board would be “reckless” not to raise tuition.

“None of us want to do it, but if we don’t … down the road our only option will be to cut curriculum, to cut offerings,” Carlin said.

One professor at the school urged trustees before the vote to consider the impact the increase might have on the school’s most “vulnerable students.”

“Every time we raise tuition, we close the door on the dreams of those who can just barely afford to come here,” said Bob Hazard, a professor of English and vice president of the school’s faculty association.