CSU will keep tuition flat for 2021-22
Another year like 2020 and sophomore Ethan Luong said he may not have returned to Cal State Fullerton for the fall semester.
In an era of seemingly unrelentingly bad news on the education front, Luong and the 485,000 students in the California State University system were given something positive for the coming academic year.
On the heels of declaring a plan to return to in-person classes on CSU campuses, new chancellor Joseph Castro announced at the bimonthly CSU Board of Trustees meeting in January that the CSU system won’t raise tuition for 2021-22.
“I want to make sure all of our students hear that, and all the students that are thinking about the CSU hear that: No increase in tuition for 202122,” Castro said at the meeting.
Cal State Fullerton President Fram Virjee wholeheartedly endorsed the decision.
“I agree completely with the decision not to raise tuition in the midst of a pandemic,” he said. “We have students and families who are emotionally and financially affected.”
Before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down inperson classes at CSUF in March 2020, Luong found being on campus and interacting with students and professors exhilarating.
“Being new to college, just for that to be taken away was hard,” Luong said.
A tuition hike would have been the final straw.
With the cost freeze and the promise of in-person classes, Luong said he is excited to get back.
The systemwide freeze on tuition did not extend to individual campus fees, which have shot up in the past 10 years at some campuses.
As a university system, CSU has only raised tuition once in the past decade, a $270 hike in 201718. Undergraduate tuition at the state schools is currently $5,742 annually.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s January budget proposal includes a 3% increase in funding as long as tuition stays flat,” according to CalMatters. However, the nearly $145 million only recovers about half the amount slashed from off the current state budget.
Luckily for the Cal State system, help appears to be on the way from the federal government.
According to analysis by CalMatters, “The most recent federal relief package is expected to mete out even more aid to the system, about $854 million … At least $262 million of that is supposed to go to students as emergency aid grants.”