Tuition increases 3 percent or more for all Pitt students

When Kathy Smith graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania 27 years ago, she paid… When Kathy Smith graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania 27 years ago, she paid off her student loans by working — a task she feels was much easier back then than it will be for her daughter today.

Although she said that one problem is higher interest rates for student loans, she still feels that the price for college — including Pitt’s — is “very high.”

Kathy’s daughter, Kaitlin Smith, will begin her sophomore year at Pitt this fall, and although Kaitlin said she plans on getting a job to help pay for college, Kathy isn’t pressuring her.

“I’ll encourage her to work when she adjusts [to Pitt],” Kathy said.

For the Smiths — and the families of every other student admitted to Pitt since fall 2004 — the price of tuition has increased again.

Pitt’s Board of Trustees announced on July 14 that tuition rates at the Pittsburgh campus will increase 5.9 percent for in-state students and 3 percent for out-of-state students.

According to Pitt’s Web site, in-state Pitt students admitted since fall 2004 will have to pay $11,368 for the 2006-07 academic year, an increase of $632, and out-of-state Pitt students will have to pay $20,686, an increase of $602.

The Web site also said that all in-state residents admitted to Pitt prior to fall semester of 2004 will have to pay $10,246, an increase of $570, and out-of-state residents will have to pay $20,156, an increase of $580.

A July 14 Pitt press release called these tuition increases the lowest on the Pittsburgh campus since 2001.

According to a story in The Pitt News from 2005, tuition for in-state students increased by 6 percent and tuition for out-of-state students increased by about 3 percent last year.

The tuition increases came after Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg and other Pitt officials joined administrators from other state-related universities to request increased funding from Pennsylvania’s House Appropriations Committee on Feb. 23, 2006, according to a March 2 article in the University Times.

The article also said that Pitt officials asked the committee for a 10 percent appropriation increase, and although Gov. Ed Rendell recommended a 4 percent increase, state legislators eventually granted Pitt a 4.7 percent increase, giving Pitt approximately $164.6 million.

According to the article, Nordenberg pointed out a Chronicle of Higher Education report that ranked Pennsylvania’s increase in higher education funding 39th in the nation for the 2005-06 fiscal year.

He also reminded legislators that Pennsylvania has fallen from comprising approximately 33 percent of Pitt’s budget in the 1970s to 12 percent today, according to the article.

Penn State’s President Graham Spanier said that Pennsylvania’s tight budgets have left Pitt, Penn State and Temple University struggling with increasing costs for health care, libraries, insurance and security, according to the article.

“Higher tuition has become the only available option,” said Spanier, according to the University Times.