Pitt hikes up tuition 8.5 percent

Sticker shock? If students paid attention to the news this summer, they’d know that tuition… Sticker shock? If students paid attention to the news this summer, they’d know that tuition went up by more than $1,000.

Pitt announced its 8.5 percent tuition increase in early July, bringing the total tuition up to $15,272 for Keystone State residents. Pitt officials blamed the increase, the largest since 2003, on a reduction in state funding. The cost for non-Pennsylvania students went up $948 to $24,680.

Along with the tuition increases, Pitt increased salaries by 2 percent, pumped $13 million into financial aid, and announced it would cut another $40 million from the $1.94 billion budget.

Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and other board members blamed the rise in tuition on Pitt’s appropriations bill that Gov. Tom Corbett signed into law on June 30. The bill cut Pitt’s state funding by 22 percent.

“We put a priority on trying to shoulder as much of the load as we could and we had pledged not to put the entire weight of these reductions … onto the shoulders of our students,” Nordenberg said at the July 8 Board of Trustees Executive Committee meeting that decided the budget. “We did meet that pledge with the budget that was approved today.”

The University’s appropriation this year marks the largest decrease in Pitt’s state funding in more than a decade. The total appropriation — $136 million — is nearest to Pitt’s 1993 appropriation of $135 million. Last year, the University received more than $184 million, including more than $10 million in federal stimulus funds that ran out this year.

Pitt saw cuts totaling more than $40 million across various programs — a 22-percent reduction in state support. This includes the 19-percent reduction to general appropriation and a 50-percent reduction to Pitt’s academic medical center funding.

Nordenberg said in a statement following the announcement that he felt grateful the state cut less than Gov. Corbett’s originally proposed halving of Pitt’s funding, but he said that the remaining cuts are still “deep and disproportionate.”

Penn State, along with the other two Pennsylvania state-related schools, will face similar state funding cuts. Temple increased its tuition by 10 percent, whereas Penn State increased its tuition by 4.9 percent. The 14 fully-state-funded universities in Pennsylvania increased tuition by 7.5 percent.

In a Department of Education list released earlier this summer, Pitt’s tuition for the 2010-2011 schoolyear ranked it as the second-most-expensive public university in the country, following only Penn State. But because of the tuition increases, Pitt might overtake Penn State for the No. 1 spot this year.

Sara Gast, a spokesperson for the Department of Education, said in July that the department will update the list next summer based on this year’s tuition numbers.

Pitt students will pay more than Penn State’s freshmen and sophomores will pay this fall. However, Penn State has a tiered tuition program, meaning that juniors and seniors pay more than underclassmen.

Pitt is now $148 more expensive for in-state tuition than Penn State, at least for its freshmen and sophomores. Over a four-year period, however, in-state Penn State students will end up paying nearly $2,000 more in tuition. And for out-of-state students, Pitt is still much cheaper. Next year, non-Pennsylvania-resident Pitt students will pay between $3,000 and $4,000 less than Penn State’s out-of-state students.

Pitt spokeswoman Mandy Ross said it’s important to keep in mind that Pitt’s cut in state allocations was 22 percent, whereas Penn State’s was 19.6 percent.

“Our percentage hit was higher than Penn State. We had more ground to make up,” Ross said.

She said Pitt is more comparable to private schools that charge upwards of $40,000 than to other institutions with public-university costs.

“We should be looking at our tuition versus private schools because we’re really providing the same thing, but the difference [in tuition] is dramatic,” Ross said.

Pitt students will get a little more help in the fall. Pitt’s financial aid budget increased by $13 million, and more than $163 million in state financial aid should be made available in the next fiscal year, Nordenberg said at the budget meeting.

The $13 million extra in financial aid comes from reserves and discounted tuition, said Patricia Beeson, provost and senior vice chancellor.

Beeson said that the money didn’t go toward the tuition hike because “this allows us to target it more to those who need it.”

The state financial aid agency will also increase its grants for the next year.

Pitt officials said that the tuition hike would cover 40 percent of a $70 million budget gap, while the rest will be covered by reduced spending. But as of mid-August, Pitt officials have yet to say where the remaining budget cuts will occur, and there will likely be no announcement once the decisions are made.