The Board of Trustees unanimously approved an 8 percent tuition increase across all three University of Illinois campuses at their meeting Thursday.

Chet Gardner, vice president for academic affairs, said the $25.1 million raised by the increase will allow the University to restore about one-third of the University's vacant faculty positions. Such positions remain vacant because instructors were not rehired or positions went unfilled as administration did not have enough money to employ them.

He also said the money would be used to restore about 480 courses of the more than 800 that were eliminated by budget cuts this year. Restoring these courses could contribute to an average 1.1 percent increase in faculty and staff salaries, he said.

Although the tuition hike will not generate enough revenue to allow the University to restore all the faculty positions and courses it lost from budget cuts in recent years, Gardner said it's not "economically prudent" to ask for all the revenue the University needs through tuition.

The University also approved a guaranteed tuition program to comply with the truth-in-tuition law that was passed this summer. The law ensures tuition will remain the same for students who complete their undergraduate education for four consecutive years.

Under the University's plan, the guaranteed tuition for incoming in-state students will be $3,230 a semester for undergraduates at the Urbana campus, $2,841 a semester at the Chicago campus, and $2,001 a semester at the Springfield campus.

Fee increases were also approved unanimously by the board. Students on this campus will see a $10 fee hike, while those on the Chicago campus will pay $38 more in fees and those at Springfield will pay $101 more in fees.

Semester room and board rates also were increased by the board. On the Urbana campus, students will pay an average of $3,201 a semester under the new rates. Chicago students will pay an average of $3,442 a semester and Springfield students will pay an average of $3,409 a semester.

Other special adjustments to tuition were a $200 increase in the existing differentials for engineering and the establishment of $200 differentials for nursing and art students at the Chicago campus. At Urbana, continuing chemistry and life sciences students will pay $250 more in their tuition differential and new students in those disciplines will pay a differential increased by $750.

In other board news:

The board voted to redesignate the Expanded Child Development Laboratory as the Early Child Development Laboratory on the Urbana campus.

The board voted to establish a Liautaud Graduate School of Business on the Chicago campus after the Liautaud family — including James John Liautaud, the founder of Jimmy John's — donated $5 million to the University.