WASHINGTON, D.C. — Room and board rates for the 2002-03 academic year will increase by about 6.8 percent.

The Penn State Board of Trustees approved the rates at its meeting Friday. Under the new rates, a typical undergraduate double room will be $1,455 per semester, an increase of $115 over this year's rate.

The benchmark meal plan, A La Board plan 3, which includes 44,500 meal points per semester, will be $1,375, an increase of $65 over this year's rate.

All campus housing, from supplemental rooms to graduate housing, will have some kind of increase.

The new West Campus housing will open this fall with 300 spaces for single graduate students at $465 per month. Family housing in West Campus will range from $650 a month for a one-bedroom apartment to $850 a month for a three-bedroom.

The Graduate Circle family housing will go up $10 or $15 a month, depending on the number of bedrooms.

Tom Gibson, assistant vice president of Auxiliary and Business Services, which runs Housing and Food Services as well as the Nittany Lion Inn and other operations, presented the rates to the trustees.

"We try to be very sensitive to the market rates and the costs," Gibson said.

Penn State's room and board rates rank in the bottom half of the Big Ten, and the university might become the fourth-cheapest for rates if other schools increase room and board as predicted, Gibson said.

Part of the Housing and Food Services budget is going to fund safety improvements such as fire sprinklers.

"Our goal is to have 50 percent of our space sprinkled entirely by the year 2005," Gibson said.

There will also be more money going to the Office of Residence Life next year to have more resident assistants in East Halls.

Gibson said 85 percent of Penn State's housing and food service facilities were built prior to 1970.

"They do not represent the current expectations of our students," he said.

He said renovations to dining areas such as Redifer Commons and the possible combination of Simmons and McElwain dining halls are some parts of the progression toward better service. There are also new dorms planned for University Park and other campuses.

Ozgur Tunceli, Graduate Student Association president, said housing costs for graduate students, especially in the new West Campus Housing, are still too high.

"We feel that in some way the housing — especially for families with kids — could be more affordable, and maybe some kind of subsidy could be involved in determining their rates," Tunceli said.

She extended an invitation from some students living in the Graduate Circle to have the trustees over for tea or coffee to see the conditions of their housing and determine then if the rates are reasonable.

Justin Zartman, Undergraduate Student Government president, said he considers the rate increases reasonable, especially if one compares the increase to what people pay in rent downtown.

Zartman also said he is pleased that more money is going to Residence Life and to safety improvements such as sprinklers.