Appointed by the California governor, 21-year-old Maggie White, a student trustee for the California State University system, spends her time traveling across the state to talk with legislators and students about the system’s proposed tuition hike for in-state students.
“Ideally what I’d like to see is another freeze like what we’ve had for the past few years,” says White, a graduate student at California State University–Stanislaus who represents more than 470,000 students across Cal State’s 23 campuses and eight off-campus centers.
Squeezed to pay for an increasing number of students, the University of California and California State University systems are considering a tuition increase for in-state students for the first time in six years. The hike would mean an extra $270 for Cal State students and an additional $280 at UC annually, officials say.
“In California, there’s been pushback on the method of using out-of-state enrollment for shoring up their budget,” says Benjamin Barrett, a senior policy analyst at think-tank New America in the District of Columbia.
[Learn how out-of-state enrollment is rising at state flagship universities.]
Barrett says many states use out-of-state student enrollment to make ends meet since “they obviously pay more in tuition.”
At the University of California–Berkeley, for example, in-state tuition and fees for 2016-2017 is $13,509 compared with a $40,191 price for out of state — which is nearly triple the price of in-state tuition, U.S. News data show.
San Diego resident Kristyn Gomes, whose 19-year-old daughter attends the University of California–San Diego, says the proposed tuition increase seems like a bit of a “double charge” since they’re asking residents to pay more to make sure there are more spots for California students.
“We’re fortunate that our son is graduating from San Diego State University later this month, so we will only be impacted by the fee increase in terms of our daughter’s education,” Gomes says.
[Read how some colleges choose to slash or freeze tuition.]
Most states, similar to California, are now spending less on students in higher education compared with levels before the Great Recession, according to a recent report by the District of Columbia-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The report found that only Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming have increased spending since 2008.
Spending cuts at the state level are driving many public colleges and universities across the country to increase tuition, experts say.
Here are a couple takeaways for students and parents about tuition hikes at public institutions.
— In-state tuition hikes tend to be modest. For the 2016-2017 school year, in-state students at four-year state schools experienced an increase in tuition and fees by an average of nearly 2 percent compared with 3 percent for out-of-state students, according to data reported to U.S. News.
In fact, the proposed in-state rate hike for UC and CSU undergraduate students in California is around 2 percent. The proposed increase in out-of-state tuition is 5 percent.
“There’s definitely a higher incentive to keep in-state tuition low and there’s not much accountability on out-of-state students on the prices they pay,” says Barrett from New America.
Another example is Iowa, where the state’s regents voted this month to raise in-state tuition by 2 percent for all three of Iowa’s four-year public institutions for the 2017-2018 school year.
For parents and students who are making a school selection based on a set anticipated price for four years, Barrett recommends to look at laws requiring schools to publish four-year prices. “That school locks in rates upfront, so you’re not stuck with the price shock for your sophomore,” he says.
These tuition freezes, experts say, usually only apply to in-state undergraduates.
[Read three facts about aid and tuition for out-of-state students.]
— Public institutions target out-of-state students for higher tuition increases. Policy analysts say out-of-state students aren’t as price sensitive when it comes to rate hikes since these students tend to be more affluent.
“If it’s only a couple thousand dollars a year, it’s really not going to make a difference for them,” says Kristen Moon, an educational consultant at Atlanta-based Moon Prep, which provides college advising services. “They’re looking at it as a bargain even though they’re paying $40,000 a year. Compare that to an Ivy League with $60,000-plus.”
In turn, many states continue to look to out-of-state students to pay higher tuition bills — often increasing rates annually — to offset state budgetary cuts, experts say.
Most recently, the board of regents for the University of Wisconsin system voted to raise out-of-state tuition at its public universities. The University of Wisconsin–Madison, one of the six schools in the state to increase rates for nonresidents, will raise its out-of-state undergraduate tuition by nearly 13 percent over the next two years from $31,523 in 2016-2017 to $35,523 in 2018-2019.The board also voted to continue a tuition freeze for resident undergraduates into 2017-2018.
“The mission that some of these state schools have is they’re really focused on serving their own students, and there’s not the same mission component for students that don’t live in the state,” says Kim Dancy, a policy analyst at New America.
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Tuition Hikes in Store at Some State Universities originally appeared on usnews.com
