As the price of a college education is becoming more out of reach to some families, the CSUS Board of Trustees have voted to freeze tuition beginning next fall. This has a hugely positive effect for potential students and families. Every year since 1999, the tuition has been increasing at a steady rate. Part of the attraction of the Connecticut State University System has always been its accessibility to Connecticut residents.
After the last two years of increases around six percent, students can now take a deep breath in thinking that their costs will not be several hundred dollars higher. This money can be used to buy books, upgrade laptops, help pay for residence fees and buy gas for commuters.
In order to help make this freeze possible, the non-unionized workers have been hit with a payroll freeze. This includes the chancellor of the CSUS, the presidents of all four state universities, vice presidents, police chiefs and deans, among other employees. And while the universities main objective is always to provide an education for its students, the salaries of these individuals who are affected by this pay freeze weigh heavily on them. In fact, this is the second pay freeze of this kind in the last three years for the CSUS.
Before students get too excited about this tuition freeze, we must all remember that this decision could be lifted if the CSUS Board of Trustees deems it necessary. The board has left the option and the right open to rescind the decision made last Thursday should they deem the state’s financial situation in a worse situation and in need of extra funds. With all the planned expansions on the campuses of our universities and the need for more educators due to the increase in enrollment, we will need to pay for it in some fashion. Also, this payroll freeze does not apply to the unionized employees in the system, as they have been contractually guaranteed to receive pay increases for the 2012 fiscal year.
So where will this money come from? Tuition has been increasing steadily for the past decade in order to help pay for these increases, not only in payroll but in university spending. The pay freeze, along with unpaid furlough days, will save the CSUS over $43 million dollars, but the system will be missing out on its familiar annual increase in education fees, an amount that while sometimes small to a student, adds up to a great deal for the university system. Coupled with the fact that the universities will be receiving $15 million less this year from the state budget, there will likely come a moment where a tuition hike is to be expected to make up for what might be lost.
The tuition here at CCSU this year for in-state residents is just under $8,000 and that’s very affordable, a figure student’s should feel lucky to have. After the last two spikes in price, it’s nearly $1,000 higher than it was two years ago. Before we get too comfortable in thinking it’s going to stay under this price threshold for awhile, we need to remember that our tuition is needed to make this university operate, and that the ever-changing financial landscape might call for different policies each year. It shouldn’t surprise any student that there is still the potential that they will be paying higher tuition by several percentage points in the coming years.
