A drop in Tuition rates at Penn State and Pitt. That’s what a group of state legislative leaders are requesting after the universities received a special funding grant from Governor Tom Wolf.
Gary Sinderson has more. Just last week, the Penn State trustees raised tuition by 5%.
One reason cited was the university was flat funded in the latest state budget. Penn State state appropriation remains the same at about $242 million. Shortly after the state budget announcement, Governor Tom Wolf announced the four state related universities.
Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln would split an additional $40 million in federal COVID relief funding for Penn State.
The added funding is about $12 million. While visiting Penn State this week, the Governor told us he feels it’s affordable Higher education requires more state revenue support.
“As we do that, I think we can start to make some progress in the other areas, making sure it’s accessible, affordable, all those things we’ve got to do. We’ve got to start with the Commonwealth making sure it dispenses its responsibility to invest in education.”
But a group of state House Republican lawmakers is now asking the four universities to roll back tuition increases with news of the Governor’s added funding.
In a letter to the university presidents, the lawmakers said, quote,
Rather than take a punitive posture towards Pennsylvania students and families attending your institutions by raising tuition and fees, the recent funding news
, coupled with large endowments upon which you can rely to help offset inflation like cost increases, makes now the perfect time to reverse course on tuition increases, unquote.
