Thanks To More State Funding, Tennessee College Tuition Increases May Be Smaller Next Year

Tennessee’s largest higher education system is planning, as always, to raise tuition for students next year. That’s the bad news.

The good news? It could be the smallest tuition increase in the past decade.

In recent years, the Tennessee Board of Regents — which includes MTSU, Tennessee State and the state’s community colleges — has often raised its average tuition by more than 5 percent. In 2011, tuition increased 8.8 percent, according to TBR data.

But the preliminary budget this year plans to keep tuition hikes at its schools under 4 percent. The biggest reason for this is simple, says Chancellor John Morgan: The state is giving colleges and universities more money. That means less of the financial burden is falling on students.

“In several of the prior years, we actually had reductions in state funding,” Morgan says. “We had some fairly high numbers in some of those years.”

Morgan stresses this more moderate tuition increase is still preliminary. TBR’s finance committee is meeting again at the end of the month, when it’s expected to finalize tuition rates.