Freezing tuition the only choice for Umass

It’s the right decision, but is it enough to attract a uniquely impacted class of highschool seniors or retain already-enrolled students, upended academically and socially by this coronavirus pandemic?

In recognition of the virus-imposed financial strains on students and their families, along with the related diminished educational experience of distanced, online learning, University of Massachusetts President Marty Meehan has taken the responsible course by supporting another tuition freeze for the system’s roughly 50,000 in-state undergraduate students in next academic year.

Meehan — as part of his State of the University address — said Umass hopes to have “near normal operations” in the fall, with most students attending in-person classes and employees returning to campuses.

Meehan’s decision was made easier thanks to last week’s passage of the $1.9 trillion spending and COVID-19 relief package.

While the freeze forfeits $14.3 million in revenue that would have been generated with an inflation-matched tuition increase, it’s estimated that the massive stimulus-relief package includes $133.6 million for Umass, to be split between student financial aid and campus operations.

A tuition increase on top of that generous federal-aid package wouldn’t have been well received — on Main Street or Beacon Hill. There doesn’t appear to be any internal opposition to Meehan’s recommendation; Umass Trustees

Chairman Robert Manning suggested his support for the freeze in a press statement earlier this week.

Any tuition adjustments for regional and out-of-state undergraduates and graduate students will be determined in the coming months. This freeze would follow a similar step taken in the 2020-21 academic year.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that Fitchburg State University officials made the same tough call back in February, without any concrete prospects of forthcoming federal aid.

“Our commitment to keeping costs flat reflects that commitment to keeping higher education within reach for students and families, especially at a time when so many have been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic,” University President Richard S. Lapidus said at the time.

Framingham State University also previously announced in December its decision to freeze tuition and fees for the upcoming academic year.

Of course, tuition and fees account for only a portion of a college education’s cost.

According to data from the 2019-2020 academic year, in-state students who live on the Amherst campus can add $13,000 to that roughly $16,000 in tuition.

At Umass Lowell, that instate tuition, room and board total comes to about $28,000.

And that doesn’t include additional, special fees or pocket money for any discretional spending.

In the fantasy world envisioned by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other serial debt forgivers, perhaps students and their families can throw responsibility to the wind, in the hopes that a federal government already hemorrhaging multi-trillions in the red will simply pay off all those college loans, so college graduates can begin their adult lives free of that inconvenient burden.

But in the real word — outside of higher education’s ivory towers and the Capital Beltway that encircles and insulates Washington — a signed loan contract constitutes an explicit promise to repay that amount, with interest.

In this current or even post-pandemic climate, students and their families must seriously consider whether accumulating thousands in debt for a traditional college experience makes sense. That’s the case President Meehan and all but the heads of a handful of globally recognized, elite universities must make.

Keeping already steep college costs steady might just be the first step in keeping any college or state university system viable.

Selling your university and sealing the deal by attracting an incoming class of highly qualified students might be the toughest selling job yet, even for Meehan, a former longtime Lowell congressman well-schooled in the art of persuasion.