Students will be able to learn about and give their two cents on a proposed housing rate increase that would raise the cost of room and board next semester by as much as $250 at a forum tonight in Lumpkin Hall.

Many Student Senate members, including Speaker of the Senate Adam Weyhaupt and the senate’s Tuition and Fee Review committee will attend the forum, scheduled for 7 pm in Lumpkin Hall Room 122, to explain the proposal and to hear student opinion about housing rates, Weyhaupt said.

“Basically, I will be telling everyone what the newly proposed rates are,” said Jen Fanthorpe, Tuition and Fee Review committee chair. Fanthorpe said she will also ask students about whether housing expenses such as the residence hall newspaper program and a plan to install hand dryers or paper towel dispensers in residence hall bathrooms should be kept for next year.

Students will also be able to take a survey about housing rates and expenses at the forum, Fanthorpe said.

Weyhaupt said earlier the results of the survey would be considered by senate members when they vote this Wednesday on whether to endorse the new rate plan.

Under the plan, submitted to the senate last week after being worked out earlier this month by Weyhaupt, Student Body President Katie Cox, and Vice President for Student Affairs Lou Hencken, a standard double room with five meals a week and 200 dining dollars would cost $2,155, a $40 increase over this semester’s rates. Prices for meal plans with 10, 12, and 15 meals a week would jump $250, $184, and $178 respectively.

The current proposal replaces the original rate increase plan put forth by the Bond Revenue committee in its annual housing budget proposal finalized last month. In the original proposal, rates for meal plans with 5, 10, 12, and 15 meals a week would be hiked $195, $250, $200, and $210 respectively.

Hencken said the rate increase is necessary because of inflation, and a tendency by students this year to choose less expensive meal plans, a trend Hencken said has cost Eastern over a quarter of a million dollars.

While the new proposal is less costly than the original plan, the lower cost comes at the expense of dining dollars, Weyhaupt said. The old proposal recommended an increase of 50 dining dollars for the five meal plan, 20 dining dollars for the 10 meal plan, and 40 dining dollars for the 15 meal plan.

The new proposal, however, would maintain the current allotment of 200, 60, 100, and 140 dining dollars for the 5, 10, 12 and 15 meal plans respectively.

Weyhaupt said the reason the new plan drops 50 dining dollars from the original plan but saves students only $40 is to allow dining services to cover overhead costs.

The new plan’s rates could be made even lower if the newspaper and hand dryer programs were cut, Weyhaupt said. According to the proposal, dropping the newspaper program would save each student $10 a semester; axing the hand dryer program would decrease rates by an additional $7.

Fanthorpe said students should make every effort to come out to the forum.

“It is a time for all students to be heard so when we approve the final rates they represent exactly what the students want,” Fanthorpe said. “I think that the students are really concerned about the rates and want to be heard.”