HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE)’s Board of Governors announced on July 20 a fifth consecutive year of tuition freezes at Pennsylvania’s state universities.
Tuition at Pennsylvania’s state universities will cost $7,716 per year for in-state undergraduate students this coming school year.
That price has not gone up in six years. Adjusted for inflation, the price in 2023 is 21% lower than in 2018.
“Affordability matters. Higher education is demonstrably the most reliable pathway to a great job and a sustaining career,” said PASSHE Chancellor Dan Greenstein.
The choice to freeze tuition was based on the state budget increasing PASSHE funding by 6% to a total of $585.6 million.
That budget now hangs in limbo, however. To get the budget through the Democrat-controlled state House, Gov. Josh Shapiro said he would veto his own proposal to use state-funded vouchers for private schools.
Republicans are calling the current situation the “Great Betrayal Budget Impasse” because they say that they made major spending concessions in other areas in return for the voucher program, also known as Lifeline Scholarships.
The final budget will also depend on how much money goes to Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities: Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln.
Republicans say those schools should not get the 7% funding raise allocated in the current budget because the schools would not promise to freeze tuition for the upcoming school year.
“State-related universities should ask what PASSHE schools have done to keep down costs before asking taxpayers and students to float their massive budgets,” said State Rep. Seth Grove (R-York) at a press briefing on Thursday.
Lincoln University is a possible exception for Republicans. Though it would not commit to not raising tuition, the school has committed to keeping individual students’ tuition the same through their four years of attendance since 2014. House Republicans voted in favor of Lincoln’s appropriation when all schools’ funding was considered separately.
After standalone funding bills for Temple and Pitt failed in the House, lawmakers combined funding all four state-related universities into one bill, which also failed.
Funding for state-related universities is included in the state budget but also requires a separate authorization vote with a two-thirds majority.
With the current partisan deadlock, the issue is unlikely to be addressed until at least October.
Meanwhile, PASSHE officials said a long-term solution for college funding is needed.
“We’re pricing people out of college, which means we’re pricing them out of an opportunity to get a good job and a sustaining career,” said Chancellor Greenstein. “So the state has to come together with educators and employers, in my view, and it has to address this problem of affordability systemically.”
Greenstein added that PASSHE schools have enough reserve funds to survive amid a budget shutdown, at least for a while.