UConn board approves 4 percent tuition hike next year
The University of Connecticut’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a tuition increase that will raise the price by 4 percent next year and by 23 percent over the next five years.
The proposal calls for increasing tuition by $3,214 over that time, in incremental annual increases ranging from $608 in 2020 to $679 in 2024. Officials said the plan is necessary “to protect academic quality, in the face of rising costs.”
“We are talking about raising tuition. Why is that? It’s our responsibility to protect what we’ve built,” Executive Vice President for Administration and Chief Financial Officer Scott Jordan said, citing the school’s rising national reputation and the higher academic qualifications of incoming students.
UConn administrators have touted the increase as the lowest in recent years. Instate rates have increased by at least $600 every year since 2014, and by $950 from 2018 to 2019. Outofstate tuition has increased by more than $1,000 each year for the last three years, including by $1,250 last year.
Tuition at UConn has increased every year since 2010. Instate students now pay $13,798, which 70 percent more than they did 10 years ago. Outofstate students paid $24,528 in tuition 10 years ago; that cost has risen by 48 percent to $36,466. Fees have also climbed in that time by more than $1,000.
Officials said the tuition increase is necessary due to declines in state funding and rising costs, including from fringe benefits. UConn expects to increase its institutional financial aid budget from $123 million this year to $130 million next year, Jordan said.
“We are more reliant on tuition now than we ever have been, and less reliant on state support,” he said.
While UConn has received “strong support” compared to universities in other states, “it is volatile,” Jordan said. “UConn state supports trend right along with the health of the state budget. It’s gone sort of up and down with the budget cycle, but the swings can be dramatic.”
The State Block Grant to the university has averaged about $214 million per year since the 2010 fiscal year, Jordan said. This year’s budgeted block grant is about $14 million less than that. Just under half of UConn employee salaries are funded from that grant, which has fallen “that last peak,” $240 million in 2016.
The cost of fringe benefits has increased from $158.2 million in 2011 to $337 million in 2020, and the share paid by UConn has grown from 39 percent to 50 percent in that time, the university said.
Most items in the budget have been “relatively flat,” with the exception of fringe benefits, Jordan said.
President Thomas Katsouleas said the increase is also necessary to improve the quality of education for students.
“We’re going to continue to try to recruit faculty that are even more distinguished and more diverse than our current faculty, and we don’t do that without increasing our investment in the quality of the faculty that they learn from,” he said after Wednesday’s board meeting. “Students overall don’t want quality to go down, and they understand there’s inflation and there are other factors to drive that up, and the choice is to raise tuition as modestly as we can, or to cut quality.”
“No one’s ever scheduled a parade in honor of people raising prices, but it’s a reality,” Board Chairman Dan Toscano said. He thinks students are more concerned about quality than price, and that UConn is investing in quality, he said.
The board pushes administrators to be “very careful with how and where you invest,” and is “relentless” about driving down costs, he said.
The $608 increase to next year’s tuition includes $387 for inflation, calculated from the Higher Education Price Index, $121 to cover fringe benefits costs, and a flat $100 increase.
Tuition for instate students in the fall will be $14,406, while the full price for outofstate students will be $37,074. Officials chose to increase the outofstate rate by the same amount as instate tuition to remain competitive for outofstate students, Jordan said.
Storrs students currently pay $3,428 in mandatory fees, and the average cost of housing is about $13,258, while students at regional campuses pay about $840 in fees.
Despite the increase, cuts and costsaving measures are expected to continue. The increase approved by the board “really doesn’t cover our increase in expenses,” Katsouleas said.
Academic departments have made 3 to 5 percent cuts in each of the last four years. Katsouleas did not address percentages when asked if those cuts would continue, but said “it is going to require our deans and other leaders to reprioritize their resources.” They’ll also be asked “to be creative about generating new resources,” he said, such as through master’s degree programs and philanthropy.
Students interviewed on campus last week said the cost of tuition was a major factor in their decision to attend UConn, and overwhelmingly criticized the increase.
In October, Katsouleas announced the Connecticut Commitment, a guarantee that students with household incomes below $50,000 will pay no tuition starting with the fall 2020 freshman class. That plan has been criticized by some, including Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano.
The Commitment will be funded through philanthropy, Katsouleas said, calling it “a good ask for our donors.” He said there have been “a number of commitments and verbal commitments” of donations for that effort, which he expects to announce publicly soon. The numbers of donors who would likely chip in for fringe benefits or other costs is “pretty close to zero,” while the Connecticut Commitment “generates new revenue,” he said.
Students have also raised concerns about the size of the athletic budget and the amount of institutional funds supporting the department, which Katsouleas said he expects to decline in coming years with UConn’s reentry into the Big East Conference.
“The athletics subsidy is at a high right now, in part because our revenues are low as we’re between conferences and between television contracts,” he said. That will likely change in the next three to five years, he said, though “the rate at which it decreases will depend on a number of factors, including the success of the athletic teams, actually.”
While most athletic departments are subsidized by their universities, the amount of UConn’s athletic subsidy “is an outlier,” Katsouleas said. According to its 2018 NCAA financial report, the department received more than $38 million in institutional support and student fees, and spent $40 million more than it brought in.
“Right now it’s higher than we’d like,” Katsouleas said. Compared to peer schools, “it is an outlier and we’d like to bring it back into the midrange.”