University of Minnesota’s Regents Approve Budget with Tuition Tax Increase
Increase in tuition a result of legislative inaction in time of budget surplus
SAINT PAUL, MN – Today, the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents voted to approve a new operating budget that will result in tuition increases for students attending the University of Minnesota. The Regents approved undergraduate tuition and fee increases ranging from 1.6% to 2.1% for in-state residents at the five University of Minnesota campuses and 7% for nonresident students at the Twin Cities Campus. That’s on top of an increase in room and board rates. Graduate students would see tuition go up by 2.5% and 3.5% for resident and nonresident students respectively.
The tuition increases approved by the Regents today are the result of the legislature's inability to continue to keep tuition frozen, despite having a budget surplus of $2 billion. In light of having a large budget surplus, University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler referred to the underfunding and resulting tuition increases as “regrettable.”
“In 2015, the University of Minnesota and MnSCU had a tuition freeze as the core of their budget proposal,” said Rep. Pelowski. “Today we shouldn’t be increasing a regressive tax like tuition. We should be repairing the wound that was delivered to higher education over The Great Recession. We should be telling the parents and students that they’ve had enough. That if you get a degree in the State of Minnesota you don’t have to mortgage your life for the next ten to twenty years. That you might be able to have a family, that you might be able to buy a house. And that you can return to Minnesota the gifts that were given to you in the higher education systems of this state.”
Rep. Gene Pelowski, Jr. is the DFL Minority Lead on the House Committee on Higher Education and represents Winona.