State university tuition, fees could jump 4%

Tuition and fees at Connecticut State Universities would increase by 3 to 4 percent next year, while costs at community colleges would remain flat under a plan proposed by Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system president Mark Ojakian.

The proposal, released Monday, will be brought to the Board of Regents Finance and Infrastructure committee on Wednesday.

The proposal calls for raising tuition and fees at the four Connecticut State Universities, Southern, Central, Western and Eastern, for full-time undergraduate students.

That increase would include raising full-time in-state tuition across the system from $5,924 per year to $6,162, and raising the university fee, charged at all campuses, from $918 to $946. University general fees, which vary across the four schools, would also increase.

Individual increases for each campus range from $396 to $458 for in-state commuting students, and $622 to $944 for in-state residential students living on campus.

Out-of-state costs would also rise by similar amounts, from 2.9 percent

to 3.7 percent. Tuition would rise from $17,726 to $18,436, with additional fee increases.

The plan calls for maintaining the current tuition rate at the 12 community colleges: full-time students pay $2,238 per semester, or $4,476 per year, while parttime students are charged $166 per credit, plus fees.

Starting this fall, fulltime, first-time in-state students will pay no tuition at the community colleges under the new Pledge to Advance Connecticut program. Part-time students, taking fewer than 12 credits, and students who have previously enrolled in college, will still be charged tuition and fees.

Ojakian said the system is able to hold tuition flat because of savings generated through the ongoing

consolidation plan, Students First, which is working to combine the 12 colleges into one school with a shared accreditation across all campuses. CSCU also expects to generate revenue from increased enrollment from PACT. They estimate that full-time equivalent enrollment will increase by 2,093 students next year due to the free tuition program.

At two colleges, student activity fees will increase by request from student government associations, Ojakian said: if approved, Northwestern Community College students would pay $20 per semester, if they are full-time, and $15 if part-time, and Housatonic Community College fees would increase to $20 for full-time students and $10 for part-time students.

Southern Connecticut State University has also proposed raising costs for two programs due to increased

operating costs, including external clinical placements. The university has asked to implement a $150 fee per semester for marriage and family therapy students, and raising the nursing program fee from $396 to $500 per semester for full-time students.

Tuition at Charter Oak State College, the system’s online-only school, would remain the same, and fees would decrease by $224. Currently, enrolled students are charged a student services fee three times annually, but under the proposal, they would pay it twice, and only students who are enrolled in summer semester classes would pay the third installment.

While enrollment fell at the colleges and universities from 2018 to 2019, it increased at Charter Oak last year.

The system is aiming to increase enrollment at the

community colleges to 30,000 full-time equivalent enrollment in the next two years. This fall, they reported to the board an FTE enrollment of 26,419, while their headcount enrollment, or total number of students, was just under 46,000 across the 12 campuses.

Ojakian expects the growth to come from PACT, by attracting students who otherwise would not have attended at all and incentivizing students to enroll full-time instead of part-time. The program is a last-dollar scholarship, which will cover remaining tuition and fee costs after federal aid, like Pell Grants, and other state scholarships are applied.

Ojakian also expects that PACT will attract students who aren’t eligible, but who could be receiving federal aid that would allow them to go for little or no money out-of-pocket.