Colorado State University students will likely see a 9 percent increase in tuition next year, according to Rick Miranda, CSU’s interim provost.
Colorado higher education institutions are scrambling to cut costs and find new revenue ahead of a funding crunch that will leave them short a collective $230 million — or more — in 2011, when federal stimulus money runs dry.
That shortfall represents more than a third of the state’s support for colleges and universities, and the shortfall is only expected to worsen with the state’s budget crisis.
A tuition increase would follow a 9 percent tuition hike approved for the Fort Collins campus last year for the 2009-2010 school year.
Tuition and other college costs have been rising steadily throughout the nation as states cut back on the subsidies they provide.
CSU tuition has increased every year since 2001.
But the school remains a bargain, with tuition ranking the second lowest among 12 peers in resident undergraduate tuition and fees, according to CSU’s annual financial accountability report, released Wednesday. Of its peers, only North Carolina State University charges less.
CSU’s $6,318 annual tuition and fees are approximately 75 percent of the average of its peer group’s annual tuition and fees, according to the report.
The school’s tuition increases are 14 percent below the average peer increases over the last decade.
“We want to be affordable, we don’t complain that our tuition is on the low side, however we do need resources to run a world class university,” Miranda said.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
