RADFORD -- From forming a college of pharmacy to creating a doctoral program in psychology, Radford University lists exciting goals in its six-year plan sent to Richmond a month ago.

But those goals come with a cost. An alarming cost to students if figures from the school's six-year plan are to be believed. Tuition and fee increase figures for in-state students range from 7 percent to 47.3 percent in the plan's first year.

But Radford President Penny Kyle doesn't forsee any scenario where increases would even approach the higher number.

"What they're saying is, 'If this is your six-year plan how do you pay for it if we give you a gazillion dollars? How do you pay for it if we give you nothing?' " she said.

"There's not going to be any wild stampede of tuition rates because the state is simply not going to decide that it's not going to give any funding to its public institutions. Especially this year of all years when the situation is better than it's been in some time."

Under the higher education restructuring act passed by the General Assembly earlier this year, all public, four-year colleges are required to prepare six-year tuition and enrollment projections as well as plans for meeting key state goals. Universities were also required to prepare financial aid plans to offset the tuition increases.

State education officials and lawmakers plan to use the six-year plans to hold schools accountable in return for loosening some bureaucratic strings.

Colleges were asked to prepare two tuition scenarios. The first "optimistic" scenario assumes that the state will continue to increase funding levels for public universities for each of the six years. The second "pessimistic" scenario assumes that the state will not include any new funding in universities' budgets through 2012. State officials agree with Kyle that the higher number is not likely to be approached.

"I've worked here for 25 years and I have never seen a period where there was no additional funding for six years," said Daniel Hix, finance policy director for the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the public agency that oversees colleges.

Kyle described the six-year plan as a wish list for universities. Once the costs of all the items on that list were figured, the universities then plugged in formulas on how they would be paid for. Items weren't prioritized and there was no option to hold off on or abandon projects if funding wasn't there, she said. The result was the 47.3 percent figure.

After the initial jump in the worst-case scenario, increases would drop to an average of about 10 percent during the next five years.

Increases in the best-case scenario would drop to an average 5 percent during the next five years. Tuition rates at Radford have increased by an average of 13.4 percent annually in the past five years.

If the worst-case scenario is applied to the current tuition rates, tuition and fee costs for in-state students would jump from $5,130 this year to $12,217 by 2012. The best-case scenario projections put that figure at $6,937. Those numbers do not include room and board, which costs $6,040 this year.

Radford's ambitions include developing a west campus at the former site of St. Albans Hospital in Fairlawn, increasing average SAT scores and lowering the student-to-faculty ratio.

Virginia Tech officials project that, under the optimistic scenario, in-state tuition and mandatory fees would increase by roughly 7.9 percent during the 2006-07 school year with the percentage shrinking every year. By the 2011-12 school year, students would be looking at a 6.3 percent increase.

Those estimates, which do not include room and board costs, would allow the university to raise faculty salaries to the desired level as well as allow the Tech administration to pursue its Top 30 research goals.

The total tuition and fees at Tech for an in-state student this year is $6,378. Under the optimistic scenario, tuition and fees would rise to $9,401 by 2012. Those figures do not include room and board costs, which were $4,522 this year and would be expected to increase by roughly 6 percent annually.

Assuming state support remains flat for the next six years, tuition and fees at Tech could rise by 16.6 percent next year followed by 14 percent increases in the following two years. The increase for 2011-12 school year under the pessimistic scenario was projected to be 9.7 percent.

Accounting for all tuition, fees and room and board costs, that means an in-state student living on campus would pay $18,955 -- or about $3,000 more -- in 2012 than under the optimistic projections.

"We think that would be very unlikely to occur," said Dwight Shelton, Virginia Tech's vice president for budget and financial management. "It would mean that we wouldn't get any additional money even for financial aid."

Hix declined to give the range of tuition projections provided by public colleges statewide, saying SCHEV was still analyzing the data.

But Hix described the projections as just "ballpark" estimates that will provide state leaders with highs and lows. The accompanying financial plans will also provide lawmakers and state education officials with a kind of "early warning system" in which they can see the initiatives that schools plan to emphasize in the next several years.

David Burdette, Radford's vice president for business and governmental affairs, said he couldn't speak for other schools' six-year plans. He couldn't say why Radford had a wider range between the two scenarios than Tech and laughed when asked if there was any strategy behind the figures sent to the state.

"We believe we played by the rules," he said.