Without a state funding appropriation soon, around 900 students at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford could be on the hook for about $11,000 more in tuition for the spring.

But whether students would pay that much more in tuition is dependent on the university’s board of trustees. Officials haven’t made that decision yet.

“We don’t want to increase our tuition level,” Chancellor Pat Gallagher told The Era on Tuesday, on the heels of state the legislature’s inability to come up with a revenue plan to support the state spending plan.

He said the state funding is used to provide lower tuition costs to students. The agreement has been honored for more than 50 years between the state and the University of Pittsburgh.

“Amid budget delays and ongoing debate, we did not want to pass Harrisburg’s uncertainty along to our students and their families,” Gallagher said. “However, with our first semester approaching the mid-way point — and no state revenue plan in place — we may be forced to assume that no state funding is forthcoming and amend our university’s budget accordingly.”

Earlier this year, Gallagher said officials assumed the state government would have a revenue plan in place; there is none several months later.

The state legislature passed a nearly $32 billion spending plan June 30, which totalled about $650 million for Pitt, Penn State, Temple University in Philadelphia and Lincoln University and the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

Raising the tuition could cause students to withdraw from Pitt-Bradford, for instance, said Pitt-Bradford President Dr. Livingston Alexander.

Students are already facing grave financial strain, he said. The campus already provides more than $5 million a year in institutional funding to students.

“We may not have a lot of options” other than to raise tuition, Gallagher said.

In the next month or so, the university board of trustees could reopen the university budget and plan for a tuition increase, he said.

“It hasn’t been determined yet exactly how Pitt would make up for the $147 million shortfall, but tuition is a major source of revenue and would have to be part of the solution,” said Kevin Zwick, communications manager for the University of Pittsburgh.

In the past, Gallagher said, there have been state budget troubles, but this is one extra troubling. In the short term, he said the university would have to borrow money and cut spending.

“The commonwealth appropriations of the past two years did bring increases. But those increases, while welcomed, do not fully address the inflationary impacts of the prior three years of flat funding which came on the heels of large and disproportionate cuts,” Gallagher said. “During those years, Pitt constrained tuition increases in an effort to soften the impact of diminished state funding on Pennsylvania students and families. This is not sustainable.”

While there is a concern over the impact on the university system, the worry is higher for regional campuses, Gallagher said.

Take, for example, the proximity of Pitt-Bradford to the New York state border, he indicated. Students can attend State University of New York System and City University of New York for free, as long as families make no more than $125,000 a year.

“Pennsylvania lags nearly every state in the country in its investment in higher education funding, placing the burden of making up the difference on students and their families,” Gallagher said. “A sustained and adequate investment by the commonwealth is needed to address affordability for students and to maintain the quality that has made Pitt a preferred institution among Pennsylvania’s highest achieving students.”

On Tuesday in Harrisburg, Gallagher talked with lawmakers about state funding.

Locally, Alexander said state lawmakers support commonwealth funding for the University of Pittsburgh. But broader support is needed –– meaning across the state, he said. Alexander said he urges lawmakers to act immediately.

Pitt-Bradford has about 1,200 full-time undergraduate and three-quarters of them are from Pennsylvania, according to Zwick.