by Cole Lauterbach
Arizona’s governing body for the state’s three public universities has given the go-ahead to make an education more expensive.
The Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) voted to approve tuition and fee hikes at Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona. Tuition increases will range from 2% to 3.5%.
The increases take effect for the 2022-23 academic year.
The ABOR said Thursday in a news release most continuing students at Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona would not see a tuition increase since the universities agreed to lock in tuition rates for four years.
“The board recognizes any increase in tuition has an impact on Arizona students and families, but we are pleased that the presidents’ proposals included only modest added costs in 2022-23,” ABOR Chair Lyndel Manson said. “The proposals demonstrate the joint commitment of the presidents to prioritize Arizona, access and quality while shielding resident students to the greatest extent possible from extraordinary inflationary cost pressures.”
University presidents met with ABOR in March, all recommending tuition hikes to combat inflation.
State universities provided more than $1 billion in student aid in fiscal year 2021, much of it through the Arizona Promise Program. The initiative supplements Arizona-based students whose Pell Grants fall short of tuition and other costs.
The increases come as the state weighs how it will spend billions of dollars in estimated budget overflows, something not lost on some.
“As a former regent who sought to keep tuition at our public universities as low as possible, I just can’t understand why this week the (board) raised tuition 3-3.5% when the state is sitting on a record $5.8 billion surplus,” tweeted Chris Herstam, who served on the board as recently as 2006. He later corrected the surplus amount to $5.3 billion.
Arizona’s fiscal year 2021 budget reduced higher education spending by $32.7 million, as with most other states, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
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Cole Lauterbach is a regional editor for The Center Square covering Arizona, California, and Nevada. For more than a decade, Cole has produced award-winning content on both radio and television.
