Tuition will stay the same this year for community college students in New Hampshire.
System trustees anticipated the freeze, but couldn’t finalize it until the state budget went through last month.
Chancellor Ross Gittell says it wasn’t ideal to have had to start the academic year not knowing for sure what tuition would be.
“It made for some uncertainty and that was a challenge not only for our colleges but also for the system office,” says Gittell.
Students will continue to pay $200 per credit, or $600 for most courses at the state’s community colleges. That’s $10 per course less than students paid in 2013.
Some faculty and former administrators have argued the tuition freezes come at the cost of quality faculty: the system laid off 24 full-time faculty last year, and left vacant many others positions.
But Gittell says the governor, legislature, students and businesses have all advocated for the freeze.
