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July 24, 2014

Blended tuition increase is 3.3%

Tuition for the 2015 academic year will rise 3.9 percent for students on the Pittsburgh campus and 2 percent for students on Pitt’s regional campuses, for a blended tuition-rate increase of 3.3 percent.

Trustees approved the increases July 18 as part of a $1.97 billion fiscal year 2015 operating budget that includes net tuition revenue of $579.18 billion — an increase of $13.43 million from the prior year.

Undergraduate tuition will rise to $16,872 (up $632) for the year for in-state students in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and $27,268 (up $1,022) for their out-of-state counterparts.

In-state tuition for undergraduates in arts and sciences programs, who make up the bulk of the students on Pitt’s Bradford, Greensburg and Johnstown campuses, will rise to $12,452 in the 2015-16 academic year, up $244. Tuition for out-of-state students on those campuses was set at $23,268, an increase of $456 for the year.

The annual tuition at Pitt-Titusville will rise to $10,754, up $210 for in-state students, and $20,316, up $398 for out-of-state students.

Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg said, “It has not been the mission of the University of Pittsburgh to be the lowest-cost provider of higher education within the formal structure of public higher education in Pennsylvania.

“The University of Pittsburgh, Penn State and Temple have been assigned a different mission that I would describe as being a best-value provider — institutions that are charged with providing the highest quality higher education experiences at the lowest possible cost.”

Nordenberg acknowledged that an annual ranking by the U.S. Department of Education put Pitt at No. 1 and Penn State at No. 2 for in-state tuition costs (see July 10 University Times). However, Pitt is less expensive than Penn State — by $4,400 for science undergraduates and $1,500 for non-science undergrads — when four-year costs are considered, the chancellor said, given tuition surcharges for Penn State juniors and seniors. Pitt has no such upper-division tuition surcharges.

The chancellor said in addition to The Princeton Review and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance recognition of Pitt as a best-value institution (see July 10 University Times), “It has come from the decisions made by those seeking a high-quality, reasonably priced higher education experience, through the applications that are received and the retention levels that are achieved within our own student body.”

Nordenberg said that in-state applications for undergraduate programs on the Pittsburgh campus were up more than 20 percent this year at a time when the pool of Pennsylvania high school graduates is shrinking.

“Quality has been absolutely critical to the fact that we’ve been able to almost quadruple applications to the undergraduate programs here on the Oakland campus from 1995 to this day,” Nordenberg said.

Applications for undergraduate programs on the Pittsburgh campus surpassed 30,000, up 11 percent from a year ago; applications were up nearly 17 percent for Pitt’s regional campuses.

Quality likewise has been “absolutely essential” to the University’s success in bringing in more than $10 billion in sponsored-research support since 1995 and in raising more than $2 billion from private sources through its capital campaign.

“Those donors needed to know that the University of Pittsburgh was an investment-worthy institution and that their investments were going to be effectively spent by the University once they were made,” Nordenberg said.

Following the board meeting, Nordenberg commented on Pennsylvania’s support for higher education, which has lagged behind renewed post-recession investments by other states.

“I hope that we have reached the point that state government recognizes we just can’t go any lower and we need to begin moving in another direction,” Nordenberg said, citing recommendations by the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Postsecondary Education, which urged more investment in higher education. (See Nov. 21, 2012, University Times.)

“The shifting of the burdens from what has been viewed as a public responsibility, from government to the individual students and their families, will begin to restrict access to programs,” Nordenberg said.

“America has always been built on the notion that education is a key to pursuit of the American dream. It always has been a great equalizer among those who have come from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds. You really don’t want to begin closing those doors.”

—Kimberly K. Barlow