The state House agreed Tuesday to boost support of Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities in exchange for a tuition freeze in the 2024-25 academic year.
Penn State University, the University of Pittsburgh, Temple University, and Lincoln University will receive $640 million more from the state after months of legislative wrangling.
Read More
Public universities across the United States are spending money to increase their workforce and then passing the bill along to students, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal.
Since 2002, the average flagship university’s spending rose 38%, with a majority of the money being spent on salaries and benefits, which rose by 40% in the same time period, according to an analysis by the WSJ. However, the average tuition cost per student rose 64% to cover the costs of salaries and benefits in the same time period.
Read More
Temple University (TU) cut health care benefits and tuition remission for graduate students currently on strike, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Graduate students began their strike for higher wages, improved health care, extended leave and better working conditions on Jan. 31. TU informed students via emails, which were shared on Twitter by affected students, that the university would no longer pay part of or all tuition costs and strikers would lose health care benefits because of their participation in the strike.
“We believe that this is retaliation for going on strike and we are pursuing a challenge to it,” Bethany Kosmicki, past Temple University Graduate Student Association (TUGSA) president,
Read More
Critics are taking Biden’s student loan forgiveness initiative to task because they believe it will only raise tuition in the future.
The Education Data Initiative reports that as of January 2022, in-state tuition and fees for a public 4-year university in Michigan climbed 3.31% in the last year. The cost for out-of-state tuition and fees climbed 2.76% during the same timeframe. The cost for room and board jumped a combined 10.59% in the last year.
Read More
With the Biden administration’s announcement this week that it would continue the moratorium on student loan payments through the beginning of next year and will forgive up to $20,000 in student loan debt per student, student loan forgiveness is at the top of the current political agenda. Meanwhile, there’s little talk about bringing the cost of college under control, or why the cost of college became so outrageous in the first place.
Read More
Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities are moving ahead with tuition increases in spite of Republican lawmakers’ exhortations that they freeze their prices.
Earlier this week, state Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) sent a letter to the administrators of Temple University, Lincoln University, the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania State University to urge them not to further economically burden students or their families as inflation rages. Soon thereafter, GOP leaders of the state House of Representatives sent their own message to the four schools which operate independently but rely heavily on state funding.
Read More
State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) this week wrote to Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities to urge them to abandon their planned tuition increases and freeze in-state tuition in light of skyrocketing inflation.
The senator noted that the Keystone State’s Fiscal Year 2022-23 budget allots $600 million in total to Lincoln University, Temple University, the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania State University. Those institutions are also getting $40 million in new discretionary funding from Gov. Tom Wolf (D). With such generous state subsidies, Mastriano reasoned, partially public universities should make every effort to avoid putting new pressures on students and their families.
Read More
College costs and student debt remain high, and the Senate Appropriations Committee’s hearing with the leaders of Pennsylvania’s state-related universities was about how the General Assembly can help schools, rather than why its leaders aren’t doing more.
While leaders of Penn State, Temple, Pitt, and Lincoln universities noted more funding from the Legislature would cover more costs, they noted an emphasis on graduating students faster to lower student debt.
Read More
An Ivy League law school will start paying tuition for low-income students beginning next fall to diversify its culture and make law degrees more affordable, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Yale Law School will cover the tuition for students with income below the federal poverty line by offering scholarships of roughly $72,000, the Wall Street Journal reported. The scholarship will cover tuition, fees and health insurance while students are responsible for their estimated $21,000 living expenses.
Read More
San Diego State University is now accepting donations in the form of Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
An anonymous donor has sent the school approximately $25,000 worth of Bitcoin, according to the SDSU NewsCenter.
“The SDSU auxiliary will keep almost all of the contribution in the form of Bitcoin instead of immediately converting it all to cash as many other universities have done,” the outlet reported.
Read More