Virginia's public college undergraduates will pay an average of 7.9 percent more, or $704, this year in tuition and other fees, with out-of-state students picking up much of the tab, a new state report says.
The colleges are compensating for recent state budget cuts by raising tuition, mandatory fees and the cost of room and board, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia says in its annual report.
University of Virginia undergraduates will see an increase of 8.9 percent for tuition and fees this year to $11,576, making the average out-of-state student -- 30 percent of the student body -- pay 180 percent of what it actually costs to educate him, or $36,570, said university spokeswoman Marian Anderfuran.
| Financial education | ||||||||
| University | In-state tuition and fees | Increase | Out-of-state tuition and fees | Increase | ||||
| Virginia Tech | $10,509 | 9.6 percent | $24,480 | 5.4 percent | ||||
| University of Virginia | $11,576 | 8.9 percent | $36,570 | 8.9 percent (avg increase) | ||||
| James Madison University | $4,224 | 5.8 percent | $10,869 | 5 percent | ||||
| William & Mary | $13,132 | 7.7 percent | $35,962 | 6.5 percent | ||||
| University of Mary Washington | $8,806 | 12 percent | $20,534 | 4.8 percent |
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Virginia requires out-of-state students to pay at least 100 percent of the average cost of their education, while its goal is for in-state students to pay a third of that cost.
"Out-of-state students experience higher costs," Anderfuran said. "At the same time, this helps to hold down the price of tuition for in-state students."
While William & Mary's in-state undergraduates faced an average 5.5 percent increase, its out-of-state undergraduate students -- 35 percent of its students -- face a 5.7 percent increase.
The school's in-state students will pay about a third of the $35,962 out-of-state students will pay this coming school year.
Officials at the Williamsburg school blamed the tuition increase on budget cuts adopted by the General Assembly and the elimination of federal stimulus funds.
Tuition and mandatory fees at Virginia Tech will increase by $920 for in-state undergraduate students and by $1,263 for out-of-state students, which make up 27 percent of the undergraduate student body, said university spokesman Larry Hincker.
The biggest tuition and fee increase, according to the report, was 12 percent for University of Mary Washington students, putting a gap of about $12,000 between in-state and out-of-state costs at the school.
Maryland public colleges will increase undergraduate tuition again by 3 percent -- the second time in two years after a four-year tuition freeze, said Mike Lurie of the University of Maryland System. The system's 11 universities are made up of 25,435 out-of-state and 83,148 in-state students. The only exception is Salisbury University, which approved a 6 percent increase because its tuition rates remained lower than those of the 10 other universities in the system for years.
"It's hard because private schools have always been exorbitantly expensive in comparison to public colleges," said 2010 University of Maryland graduate Jacob Berman. "But now that equation is changing because the public school out-of-state tuition is nearing the cost of some private schools."
In Virginia, the overall increase is less than last year, when tuition and fees rose an average of 10.6 percent, partly due to the additional $97 million that the governor and the 2011 General Assembly allocated to public colleges this year.
