Tennessee’s higher education commission is recommending one of the lowest tuition increases ever for public colleges and universities. Assuming the state gives them the funding they want, commission director Russ Deaton says schools should raise their tuition by no more than 3 percent next year.
“We started with, what do we think is a reasonable number to ask students and families to pay extra next year?” he told the governor Wednesday morning.
He said they thought about the financial needs of the schools while “trying to keep it where there was some movement in that pendulum back away from tuition and back towards state investment.”
Specifically, the commission is asking for about $86 million more in state funding, a 6.7 percent increase over last year. That includes $29 million in state-funded financial aid.
Colleges don’t have to follow the commission’s tuition recommendations, although Deaton says they have in recent memory. Still, the individual campuses could
raise tuition more if they want.
That could end next year: If the governor’s
new proposal to restructure higher education is approved, the commission’s guidance would be binding.
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM