Virginia Commonwealth University's in-state undergraduates are facing a 9.4 percent increase next year in tuition and fees.

After weighing the possibility of stalled progress on new initiatives versus saddling students with higher tuition bills, the Board of Visitors settled yesterday on the increase.

The typical full-time, in-state undergraduate student will pay $6,779 a year for tuition and fees. The cost for in-state students living in university housing with meal plans will increase 6.8 percent to $14,693.

Undergraduate tuition and fees for out-of-state students will increase 5.3 percent to $19,724.

In his pitch to the board, VCU President Eugene P. Trani said that even with the increase, VCU remains the least expensive for undergraduates among the state's public doctoral institutions.

Last year tuition and fees for in-state undergraduates increased 5.2 percent from the previous academic year.

"I think this is a responsible recommendation we have made to you. We can live with what's on the list and what's not on the list," Trani said.

The increases were approved as part of an $809 million university budget for 2008-09, which includes a $6.1 million increase in grants for student financial aid and a 2 percent salary increase for faculty and classified staff.

Some board members talked about further raising tuition to pay for some of the budget requests that would go unfunded.

"You can never get to be what you want to be if you don't pay the freight," said member Edward H. Bersoff.

Others noted that financial issues already rank high among reasons that students leave VCU. John M. Bennett, vice president for finance and administration for VCU, said they tried to keep cash-strapped students in mind.

"We had talked about how much we thought was reasonable, the upper boundary [of] what we though that was reasonable, to impose, but that's in the eye of the beholder," he said.

Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6812 or omeola@timesdispatch.com.