Tuition will remain unchanged next academic year at Pennsylvania’s four state universities, under provisions of a state funding bill passed Tuesday by the state House of Representatives.
Republican and Democratic party leaders declared a victory for Pennsylvania students by passing a bill to provide more than $640 million to the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State, Temple and Lincoln universities that had stalled in June.
The bill passed on a 145-57 vote after the House unanimously approved a Republican amendment directing universities to freeze tuition for the 2024-25 school year at this year’s level. It now goes to the state Senate for consideration.
“We can’t tell our young people that they should go to our institutions of higher education, especially our institutions here in Pennsylvania, and then make it unaffordable for them because they can’t afford it,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jordan Harris (D-Philadelphia) told reporters.
Democrats who control the House of Representatives were unable to get the two-thirds majority in the 203-member chamber needed to approve the spending, which is necessary because of the quasi-public nature of universities.
Republican leaders, using one of the few tools of power available to the House minority, withheld support for the funding, citing concerns about rising tuition costs and a lack of transparency at schools that are not covered by some provisions of Pennsylvania’s Right to Know law.
The bill on financing was rejected twice in final consideration in June and July. The second time, it fell just six votes brief of the required 135.
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The House on Monday passed legislation authored by state Rep. Kate Klunk (R-York) that would provide broader public access to university staff compensation information and require budget and contract information to be available in a searchable online database.
“The days of empty checks for these universities must end, and passing this legislation with a tuition freeze is good policy for our students and their families,” House Minority Leader Bryan Cutler (R-Lancaster) said after Tuesday’s vote.
Cutler added that the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education has kept tuition flat for four years and is on track to do so again in year five. It has done so by implementing a series of reforms, from consolidating administrative functions across several campuses to redesigning course offerings to better align with employer needs, he noted.
Anticipating questions about why Republicans didn’t pass a reform bill when they held a majority in the House, Cutler said the transparency bill is the culmination of years of work to ensure state funds are used only for their intended purpose: lowering tuition for Pennsylvanians.
Penn State officials said in a statement that they have already frozen tuition for this year and the 2024-25 school year at the university’s campuses.
“While we appreciate the Pennsylvania House of Representatives’ decision to approve increased funding for Penn State for the current fiscal year, we simply cannot support the amendment passed by the House,” the statement said, adding that a freeze would undermine the authority of the board of trustees and result in a $54 million cut.
The statement said the increases at the main University Park campus and in graduate programs were modest and that the funds approved this year are still less than what Penn State received in the 2010-11 academic year, even without accounting for inflation.
“Our elected officials cannot expect Penn State to offer our students a world-class education while providing state funding that is near the lowest in the nation,” the statement read.
Temple University officials said in a statement that maintaining tuition at current levels in the face of rising costs and failing enrollment would be “extremely difficult” and that agreeing to freeze fees a year in advance would not be responsible.
Pitt’s funding has long been a target of attacks by Republican Party lawmakers who oppose the exploit of fetal cell lines for research, and this spring the conservative Freedom Party caucus threatened to halt Penn State Fundingciting the treatment of transgender children at Penn State Health.
The universities said state funds are used only for financial assistance for tuition fees.
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With funding remaining blocked until the fall, Democratic lawmakers critical of their Republican counterparts for keeping students in limbo on “culture war” issues.
As recently as Monday, during a question-and-answer session at a Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon, House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D-Montgomery) gave no indication that the stalemate was close to ending.
Bradford said hopes of allocating funds the way they were in previous years have been exhausted and that Democrats have moved to pass legislation that would award the money in grants to avoid the two-thirds majority requirement.
“The Senate either needs to reciprocate and send something, or, quite frankly, House Republicans need to go a step further,” Bradford told reporters.
After the original funding bill passed Tuesday, Bradford dodged questions about dealmaking and insisted that passing the Klunk Transparency Act had nothing to do with the Republican’s position on the funding bill. He suggested that the upcoming Nov. 7 election may have influenced some to change their votes.
“I think people realize that to continue to perpetuate this, to invoke abortion, politics, social issues, is just bad politics,” Bradford said.
Capital-Star reporter John Cole contributed to this report.
