HERSHEY — Students lucky enough to secure on-campus housing next year will find pricier semester bills in their mail this summer.

One of the most popular arrangements — living in a standard double room with meal plan No. 3 — will cost about $390, or 7.9 percent, more for the year, fixing the average price tag at $5,300.

The Penn State Board of Trustees accepted one of the largest increases in room and board rates in recent years for 2001-2002 at its meeting Friday.

Tom Gibson, assistant vice president for auxiliary and business services, told the trustees that the fee hike would start subsidizing dorm sprinkler installation, new dorm construction and the renovation of aging facilities.

"Housing and food service operations at Penn State are entirely self-supporting, and not subsidized with tax dollars," Gibson said. He added that regular improvements must be funded instead by higher room and board charges.

Penn State is preparing for a 10-year, $50-million plan to retrofit all residence halls with sprinklers, which begins after the end of the spring semester with the temporary closing of Hamilton Hall.

The lion's share of work on residence halls will occur during the summer months, but that plan may change if state lawmakers pass legislation that would mandate Pennsylvania colleges and universities to retrofit all on-campus housing within five years, Gibson said.

He would not estimate the specific effects of such a bill, but said it would put a strain on the project budget and the number of residence halls that would need to be taken offline at any one time.

Only 8 percent of units on Penn State's campuses currently have sprinklers in place. By 2005, housing officials want to have more than half of the project complete.

With more than 16,000 units throughout the university, Penn State has the largest residence hall system in the state.

Gibson said state lawmakers should be sensitive to the varying sizes of Pennsylvania colleges when planning the sprinkler legislation.

At their meeting last week in the Hershey Medical Center, trustees also chose the architects who will design student housing to replace the World War II-era units in Eastview Terrace.

About 700 single bedroom units will be constructed for undergraduates on the site southeast of Pollock Halls, said Gary Schultz, board treasurer and senior vice president for finance and business.

Graduate students and their families who live in Eastview Terrace will be able to move to West Campus when the new facilities are finished there, Schultz said.

During the next 10 years, workers will also bring some of the oldest dorms at Penn State up to current code regulations.

Student Trustee Geoff Grivner responded favorably to Gibson's presentation about the reasons behind the room and board rate hike.

"I know it's a substantial increase, but I'm also thoroughly convinced it's a necessary increase," Grivner said.

However, in his farewell speech to the board, Undergraduate Student Government President Matt Roan urged the trustees to "lighten the burden on all the mothers and fathers" struggling to pay for their children's education in years to come.