University of Connecticut officials plan to raise tuition by more than $3,000 for in-state students and $4,000 for out of state students over the next four years.
The school's chief financial officer released the plan on Tuesday at a campus Town Hall meeting.
Under the proposal, tuition would rise in stages from the current $10,524 for in-state students to $13,799 in the 2019-20 school year. Tuition for out-of-state students will go from $32,066 to $36,466.
Scott Jordan, the school's CFO, said revenue generated in the first year of the tuition hike will contribute about $12.8 million to help close a projected $40 million gap in the school's $1.3 billion budget in 2016-17.
According to UConn officials, "the remaining $27.4 million gap will be mitigated through cuts, restrictive hiring, operational efficiencies, and other measures – all of which will be closely vetted to ensure they do not compromise UConn’s academic quality."
UConn President Susan Herbst released the following statement about the tuition hike:
“The state has made extraordinary investments in the University over the past two decades which have helped make UConn one of the best public universities in the nation,” Herbst said. “Safeguarding that investment means protecting both UConn’s value and academic quality, which this proposal would do. Above all, we want UConn to be a university where our students can receive an exceptional education at a competitive value.”
Local
The proposal will be presented for approval to the school's Board of Trustees later on Dec. 16.
“Year after year, UConn is becoming less and less affordable for Connecticut’s lower- and middle-income families,” Sen. John A. Kissel (R-Enfield) said in an emailed statement. “I know that’s true for the families I represent in north-central Connecticut. The people I represent have seen flat incomes for the past several years. Their children are being priced out of their flagship university. How in the world is a 31 (percent) tuition hike over four years deemed ‘reasonable’? To me, as a UConn alumnus, it’s outrageous. We are rapidly making higher education available only to the wealthy.”
Read more about the plan on the UConn Web site. UConn also posted an article about the plan on the school website.
