Tuition rises 4.5 percent

University says they could need mid-semester tuition increase

Anne Danahy

- adanahy@centredaily.com

UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State has dropped a plan to raise tuition as much as 9.8 percent this fall and will instead limit the increase to 4.5 percent for in-state undergraduates.

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CDT/Nabil K. Mark

The Penn State University Old Main building.

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The university announced Thursday, one day before its deadline to begin mailing tuition bills, that it will implement the lower of two tuition-increase scenarios the board of trustees approved July 10. However, the university opened the door to a possible mid-year tuition increase.

The move follows a directive from the U.S. Department of Education that Pennsylvania include Penn State and the other state-related universities in its application for federal stimulus money.

“Based on the support we received from members of the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation, the U.S. Department of Education, and feedback from many of the leaders in the Pennsylvania Senate and House of Representatives, we have decided to recommend the more modest of our tuition increase scenarios,” Penn State President Graham Spanier said in a news release.

“We are very concerned about the rising cost of higher education for our students, and a stable appropriation from the commonwealth will allow us to keep our tuition increase modest,” he said.

Tuition increases will range from 3.7 to 4.5 percent, depending on which campus a student attends and their resident status. According to the university, the board of trustees’ executive committee will hold a conference call today to approve the decision.

Penn State stood to lose about $20 million when Gov. Ed Rendell excluded it and the other state-related universities from the state’s application for federal stimulus money. But, the U.S. Department of Education told Rendell the state-relateds need to be included.

In addition, Rendell in June proposed reducing the state appropriation for Penn State by about $41 million in 2009- 10. The fiscal year started July 1, but no budget is in place because Rendell and the General Assembly are unable to agree on how to handle a more than $3 billion shortfall.

While the U.S. Department of Education said Pennsylvania needs to include state-related universities in its application, the announcement doesn’t say exactly how much money Penn State will get.

“In determining the amount of support to provide any public (institution of higher education), the governor may take into consideration the extent to which an IHE agrees to limit tuition increases for in-state students,” reads the Department of Education’s response.

The scenario approved by trustees under which a tuition increase would be held to 4.5 percent was based on the university receiving $318 million from the state — the same amount it received this year — and $20 million in federal stimulus money.

The university acknowledges that there is still “uncertainty” with the state budget and said in a news release that “significant additional cuts would need to be implemented if the anticipated appropriation does not occur.”

Under such a scenario, the news release states, Penn State “would need to eliminate its planned reserve, reduce employee benefits, implement millions of dollars of additional cuts on very short notice in the midst of the academic year, and levy a mid-year tuition increase.”

The announcement Thursday will mean a $295-per-semester increase for lower-level, in-state undergraduates attending University Park. That would take tuition for the 2009-10 year from $13,014 to $13,604.

The increased cost comes as the number of students and families looking for help paying tuition is climbing.

Anna Griswold, executive director of the Office of Student Aid, said that about 4,000 more students are applying for aid this year than last year. While the final numbers aren’t available yet, the number of families asking for a special review due to job loss is also growing.

Griswold said in an e-mail that “based on the number of these requests we are trying to turn around, staff are reporting a noticeable increase over prior years.”

Before Thursday’s announcement, students were bracing for an almost 10 percent increase.

Emily Seligman, a junior from DuBois, said she’s concerned about the impact of rising tuition costs on her parents.

“My brother is starting college in the fall, so I can’t even imagine how hard it will be for them,” Seligman said.

The tuition scenario the university has chosen not to implement was based on a $61 million loss in funding from the state, including loss of stimulus funding. Under that scenario, tuition would have increased 9.8 percent for instate undergraduates and 7.9 percent for out-of-state students at University Park.