Tuition pauses serve students
Virginia schools freezing tuition and fees are doing right by students
Leaders of universities across Virginia who have made the tough decision to freeze tuition for the coming academic year are doing the right thing. The pandemic has been tough on college students. Many have had to deal with online class in place of the vibrant classroom settings they expected — and paid for. Some have been back and forth from home to campus as restrictions have tightened and eased.
It’s not just that students who decided to attend traditional four-year schools have missed out the social and extracurricular experiences they anticipated. They’ve also faced academic settings that were not what they bargained for.
The cost of attending a four-year college, even a state university offering lower tuition for Virginia residents, was already nearly prohibitively expensive for many students and their families. And during the pandemic, most have not been able to find the part-time jobs waiting tables or working in retail that students typically use to bring in some money.
Even if the jobs were available, students might have been reluctant to take them when doing so might expose them to the coronavirus. In some cases, parents who students were counting on to help them financially took hits from the pandemic too.
If all that’s not enough of a burden, consider this: After spending thousands of dollars for a four-year education, these students could face a grim job market.
The pandemic has reshaped the economy, and even though it looks as though the end may be in sight, recovery is likely to be slow. All those experienced people who were thrown out of work will be out there competing for jobs too.
So when university boards sat down to decide what tuition should be for the next year, those that decided to give students a break were making a wise decision for students and for the future.
It can’t have been an easy call. Universities, too, have struggled during the pandemic. They’ve both lost income and dealt with unexpected expenses including new technology for all that virtual learning and increased sanitation and cleaning. Many had to refund some of the money students had paid for room and board contracts that were later canceled. Schools have already had to take measures such as freezing hiring and postponing discretionary spending.
With some universities such as Old Dominion in Norfolk, freezing tuition for the next academic year is even more impressive when you consider that officials decided against tuition increases in preceding years. At ODU, this is the third year in a row that tuition will hold steady for in-state undergraduates and the second consecutive year that tuition is frozen for all students including those from out of state. For next year, ODU is going one step further and also freezing all mandatory fees.
The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg won’t be raising tuition for any students; it’s the fourth year in a row in-state students get a break.
Christopher Newport University in
Newport News is keeping tuition, fees and housing costs steady for the next year. The University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and other schools are doing the same.
Explaining their decisions, several of the schools cite increases in state funding and federal coronavirus relief funds as among the reasons they are able to hold the line. The cite the devastating financial impact the pandemic has had on students and their families as their primary motivation.
The cost of tuition should not be the reason qualified students don’t seek a high education. And certainly young adults who are willing to put in the work to earn a degree shouldn’t be saddled with a mountain of debt as they head into a workplace that’s been upended by the pandemic.
Helping these students and prospective students prepare for the future will be one important part of the nation’s efforts to move past this massive challenge. The universities that are giving them a financial break deserve our thanks.