Penn State students and families will find out how much more they’ll have to pay to go to school when trustees, faced with declining state support, vote today to set tuition and fees for 2011-12.
Trustees are meeting at Penn State Lehigh Valley in the Allentown area. Their agenda includes voting on a 2011-12 budget following a 19 percent reduction in state support. President Graham Spanier has said a number of times that the university won’t make up for all of that loss by putting the burden “on the backs of our students.”
“We expect to have a tuition increase that is what you might see in a normal year,” Spanier said recently, “not a substantial increase of the sort that you’re going to see at universities around the country this year.”
In recent years, tuition increases for in-state undergraduates at Penn State have averaged about 5.5 percent. If trustees keep the tuition increase for the upcoming school year close to that, they’ll be bucking the trend seen at other schools.
Earlier this month, University of Pittsburgh trustees approved an 8.5 percent increase for in-state students. Temple University, which had averaged annual increases of 6 percent in the past decade, recently bumped its tuition for in-state students up 10 percent.
Tuition at the 14 schools in Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education will climb 7.5 percent. The state budget cut funding for those universities 18 percent.
At Penn State, the state cuts add up to $68 million when Penn College and Penn State Hershey are included. The university had a total operating budget of $4 billion in 2010-11, including Penn State Hershey and Penn College. The general funds budget was $1.7 billion.
Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said the university has already identified $60 million in savings. That includes $30 million saved by a salary freeze this year that affects all non-unionized employees and another $30 million in internal cost-cutting.
Along with the 2011-12 budget, the trustees’ agenda includes construction projects and a property purchase.
Trustees will vote on buying the property at 118 N. Butz St., State College, which is near several properties the university has bought in recent years, including the 4.66-acre site of the former O.W. Houts. Powers said that property, as with the other properties the university has bought in recent years, is near the west campus.
“The property could help provide future expansion opportunities,” she said. “It’s a relatively small parcel, and there are no specific plans for its use at this time.”
