With each academic year, tuition is inevitably increased for incoming students. Incoming freshmen face a cost increase of possibly 3% due to the university adjusting its yearly budget, making it more costly for students and their families to access a higher education.
In the past decade alone, tuition has increased drastically. In 2014, the majority of resident undergraduate students paid $9,918 per year, with nonresidents paying $30,888. For first year students in 2023, resident students pay between $13,000 and $15,000, while nonresidents are saddled with approximately $44,000 in tuition and fees.
These changes don’t go unnoticed by students. Savannah Brown, a sophomore in the School of Journalism and Communications, believes that higher education is becoming more restricted with each passing year.
“I think it’s ridiculous. I came in as a low-income student, and so the possibility of going to college was very small. I had to spend all of senior year just doing scholarships. It’s been really difficult, and I can’t imagine going in as a freshman and trying to have to deal with that on an even wider level than I have to,” Brown said.
Graduate students face similar difficulties. As graduate programs are separate from one another, each program has the ability to raise tuition as much as necessary, from as little as 0% to as much as 3.8%. Tuition for graduate students is based on the needs of the programs themselves.
Students aren’t the only ones who find these increases to be difficult. For President Scholz and his financial officers, changes in tuition are determined by the needs of staff, bringing in tenured professors, campus management and much more in order to keep the university running.
The Tuition Fee and Advisory Board meets several times during fall term to discuss tuition, in order to make it as easy as possible for incoming students to pay for their higher education. Their proposed plan for the 2024-2025 academic year will be presented to the Board of Trustees during the quarterly meeting on March 11.
For students already attending, the University of Oregon promises a five-year fixed tuition under the Oregon Guarantee, so the increases only apply to incoming students. However, annual tuition increases become a much larger issue when the majority of students can’t afford to pay tuition on their own.
Ranked nationally, UO comes in 45th place for universities receiving funding from their state governments. This means that approximately 80% of the entire budget comes from student tuition. State funding only makes up 6% of that.
Brown offered more insight on the situation, particularly on the difficulties future students will face.
“I understand that’s how the economy works, but that doesn’t make it easier. The problem is that minimum wage gets raised, but inflation is a huge issue, and people who work above minimum wage don’t get wages. So it really is difficult, and it’s not going to get easier,” Brown said.
