Dive Brief:
- The University System of New Hampshire’s board of trustees has proposed continuing a tuition freeze for two years, which would create the first four-year period without tuition hikes for in-state students at public colleges in the state’s history.
- For the University of New Hampshire in Durham, the system's flagship campus, the deal would keep in-state tuition at $13,670 — which had increased 45% from 2009 and is among the highest prices for four-year public colleges, the Associated Press reported.
- The New Hampshire Legislature had cut university system funding nearly in half in its two-year budget in 2011, but when it restored much of the funding last year, it allowed the initial tuition freeze.
Dive Insight:
Enrollment has been helped by the tuition freeze, because even though state funding is only 10% of the operating budgets for New Hampshire’s four schools in the university system, the budget cuts had created a public perception that the system was on rocky ground, the AP reported. Similar four-year freezes were implemented in 2007 in Maryland, and more recently in Texas, Illinois, and Oklahoma, with another proposed in Wisconsin. Among private colleges and universities, 53 non-profit four-year schools offered four-year fixed tuition programs last year.