More than 60,000 students attend Connecticut’s community colleges and regional universities, and they could be facing tuition hikes in the next year, as the schools battle budget deficits and declining enrollment.
Chancellor Terrance Cheng leads the state colleges and universities system, which excludes UConn. He recently told Connecticut Public’s “Where We Live” that tuition hikes are a last resort.
"Absolutely, raising tuition is brutal on our students, and we know that it hurts them and we want to do everything we can to not raise tuition," Cheng said.
A budget stablization bill in May included $80 million in federal pandemic relief funds to help the CSCU system, but additional money from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) could also be made available to the school system depending on state budget projections, according to the Connecticut Mirror.
"And so in this current legislation, the ARPA spending plan for this current year, it says that there is an additional $20 million that could come to the CSCU system by later this fall, Cheng said.
Cheng said if the money does come through, it would be used for tuition relief for students.
"It is multi-layered and multi-pronged. But you know, every bit that we can utilize to help our students, to help our faculty and our staff, we are going to put that in play,” Cheng said.
A recent report from the state Office of Legislative Research found enrollment in Cheng’s schools has declined 22% over the last five years, a drop in enrollment that is five times steeper than the national rate of 4.6%. Meanwhile, enrollment in Connecticut community colleges, specifically, has declined 27% from 2018 to 2023, almost double the national rate.
