CSCU board votes to hike tuition 5% across Conn. campuses

The Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system’s Board of Regents voted near-unanimously Thursday to increase tuition and fees 5 percent across campuses statewide, despite the protests of staff and students who have rallied against the hikes.

The tuition raises, set to take effect in September 2024, come as the system grapples with declining enrollment and a decrease in state funding, tied to the end of pandemic-era federal grant money. The result, administrators say, is a $140 million deficit during the 2025 fiscal year.

In remarks to start the Board of Regents meeting Thursday, CSCU Chancellor Terrence Cheng lamented the tuition increases as “a step we would prefer not to take,” but said shortfalls in state funding for the system left little choice.

“The state of Connecticut’s biennium budget allocation for CSCU falls significantly short of what is necessary to maintain our existing levels of operation,” Cheng said. “We have made great strides — I would dare say incredible, remarkable strides — towards closing our budget deficit, but we aren’t quite there yet.”

Cheng promised that CSCU administrators would continue to lobby state lawmakers for funding during the upcoming legislative session to “hopefully mitigate any tuition and fee increases.”

Ahead of the board’s vote, some regents agreed with Cheng’s assessment that tuition increases were unfortunate, but necessary. Others questioned if there were alternatives to close CSCU’s deficit or if administrators could push harder for more state funding. Ultimately, though, the lone regent to vote against the proposal was New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart, who said the hikes would harm students in her city and elsewhere.

“I understand the financial need,” Stewart said. “I just have a very strong feeling that it shouldn’t be done on the backs of the students until we have our stuff in order.”

The CSCU system includes all the state’s public colleges and universities except the University of Connecticut, which is operated separately.

The impending tuition hikes follow a fierce, public fight over state funding for higher education, which culminated this spring in a budget that increased CSCU’s block grant allocation, but failed to fully replace expiring federal funds. Officials in Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration have urged colleges and universities to “live within its means,” while CSCU administrators have blamed the Lamont Administration for negotiating faculty raises, but declining to fund them.

The resulting proposals for program cuts and tuition hikes across CSCU have been deeply unpopular with students and staff, some of whom have publicly protested both the state’s budget allocations and proposals from the Board of Regents to address the system’s deficit.