The Board of Governors takes additional actions toward significant fiscal sustainability.
HARRISBURG, Pa. – The Board of Governors for Pennsylvania's State System of Higher
Education for the first time in its 38-year history froze basic in-state tuition for
a second consecutive year, even while confronting financial challenges brought on
in part by the coronavirus pandemic.
Basic in-state tuition for undergraduate students at the system's 14 universities
will remain at $7,716 for the 2020-21 academic year. Also remaining the same will
be the system's technology fee for students, which stands at $478 for the academic
year. The Board voted to freeze tuition and the technology fee unanimously.
“We are united in believing that even under these historic, extraordinary circumstances,
the State System must maintain its affordability and not pass the burden of these
times onto our students," said Cindy Shapira, chair of the Board of Governors. “While
the coronavirus has impacted so much of our society and economy, what remains the
same is our mission to provide quality, affordable, accessible public higher education."
Prior to last year, only once – the 1998-99 academic year – did the Board approved
a year-to-year tuition freeze. It has never before frozen tuition for consecutive
years.
“Pennsylvania will recover from this pandemic, and our outstanding universities will
have a role in leading the recovery," Chancellor Dan Greenstein said. “To be a leader
will take courage, and the Board showed that kind of courage today by choosing to
be on the side of students and affordability. We will be here to educate the business,
healthcare, education, and community leaders of tomorrow by maintaining our place
as the affordable higher education option for students of the Commonwealth."