HARRISBURG (TNS) — Pennsylvania’s state university system will ask the state for help in its effort to keep the cost of attending its 10 schools affordable and avoid a tuition hike for the sixth consecutive year in 2024-25.
The State System of Higher Education’s governing board on Thursday voted unanimously without debate to ask the state for a 6.5% funding increase, or $38 million, for a total of $623.7 million.
“This year’s funding request takes into account the necessity of addressing inflationary increases while safeguarding students from potential cost increases,” said Molly Mercer, chief financial officer. “This approach if supported by the General Assembly and governor would enable the board to maintain flat tuition rates for students and their families.”
It would hold the base in-state tuition rate for undergraduates at $7,716, the same rate it has been since 2018-19. Had tuition risen by the rate of inflation over the past five years it would be $1,620 higher, system officials said.
“Tuition freezes are good. People like doing them. Boards like to vote for no increases,” system Chancellor Dan Greenstein told PennLive in an earlier interview. “I’m very grateful for our colleagues in the General Assembly for their support. … They should take full credit for our tuition freezes because they funded us to enable us to do that.”
The requested increase comes in the wake of a $33 million hike in state funding this year for the state universities for a total of $585.6 million which goes to support the system’s $1.9 billion operating budget. Information shared with the board shows the level of state funding the system receives per full-time-equivalent student is $7,754.
The state system’s appropriation request is more modest than the increase in state funding that Penn State seeks for next year. Its trustees last month approved asking for a 42%, or $108.8 million, increase over the $259.3 million it expects to receive this year to support the university’s operating budget but has yet to win the General Assembly’s authorization.
The holdup stems from dozens of House Republican members’ desire to see tuition rates frozen and more transparency about how it as well as Pitt, Temple and Lincoln universities spend the state dollars they receive, along with some ancillary issues relating to practices in which university health systems engage.
The University of Pittsburgh, which along with Temple and Lincoln also are affected by this stalemate over state funding, is requesting a 9.25% increase in state aid for next year over this year’s expected $162.3 million. That request comes with a promise of a freeze on in-state tuition rates.
Meanwhile, a separate piece of legislation that passed the state Senate last summer but not been approved by the House included a provision that requires the State System to freeze tuition not just this academic year – as the system’s board had already approved in July – but next year as well.
In legislation that passed the state Senate last summer but not been approved by the House, Republican senators made clear their expectation that the system freeze tuition not just this academic year – as the system’s board had already approved last summer – but next year as well.
“Why on earth would we not want to vote to make sure that the students that attend our state-owned universities are not saddled with a tuition increase next year?” said Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana County, during the floor debate on that bill. “All families who attend our State System schools deserve assurance that tuition will not go up in the 2024-25 school year.”
Front and center for lawmakers is where Pennsylvania falls in college affordability rankings in terms of student debt (the Class of 2020 had the nation’s third-highest student loan debtload), ranks 47th overall in state support for higher education, and third highest average in-state tuition and fees, according to the Education Data Initiative.
The system universities, which enroll 82,688 students, include Cheyney, East Stroudsburg, Indiana, Kutztown, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester as well as Commonwealth University, comprising Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield campuses, and Pennsylvania Western University, which includes California, Clarion and East Stroudsburg universities.
