This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
When the windows in Handler Hall froze solid in the winter of 2023, University of New Hampshire student Aidan Bearor questioned whether his second-floor dorm room was worth the nearly $13,000 annual price tag.
Bearor earned his undergraduate degree in English at UNH in Durham before enrolling at UNH Law in Concord in the fall of 2024. He described his former housing as “old, dilapidated and didn’t have any sort of air conditioning and inconsistent heat.”
“It seemed like the housing aspect of UNH was not very accommodating for the money I paid,” he said.
For Granite State students like Bearor, housing is just one of several attendance costs that have continued to climb with each academic year — costs that don’t always reflect the value they’re receiving.
The University System of New Hampshire is confronting a range of external pressures that are pushing tuition costs higher as well, marking the end of a six-year-long tuition freeze for resident undergraduates. These increases accompany rising mandatory fees, housing and food costs for students across the University of New Hampshire, Keene State College and Plymouth State University campuses.
According to a study from the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, New Hampshire ranks last in the nation for public funding toward higher education.
“Our findings should serve as a wake-up call,” said Nicole Heller, a senior policy analyst at the institute and author of the study. “Underfunding our public colleges and universities not only makes it harder for Granite Staters to afford to pursue college degrees, it also risks leaving the state unprepared to meet its workforce needs.”
Between the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years, state aid for public higher education dropped 3.9%, compared to the average among all states, which increased 4.3% during this time, according to the report.
“Without State support to offset costs, colleges and universities must rely on tuition dollars and fees to supplement annual operating budgets,” the report stated.
Eight months before the state budget was enacted, University System trustees proposed a series of tuition increases for the current fiscal year, a decision made annually each fall. This included a 15.6% total increase in resident undergraduate tuition rates across all three institutions, according to a University System statement.
Tuition for resident undergraduates at UNH Durham and Keene State is expected to increase a maximum of 2.5%. Plymouth State’s rates will increase by 3.0%, while rates at UNH Manchester will see a 5.0% hike. The largest increase, 5.1%, will affect students enrolled in UNH’s College of Professional Studies Online degree program.
Students at the state’s flagship public research university, UNH, will pay around $15,908 per year for tuition, up from last year’s $15,520. Keene State students will pay $15,154 per year, while Plymouth State students will face a $442 increase, bringing their annual tuition to $15,068, compared to last year’s $14,626.
Additional expenses, including room, board and other fees push the total cost of attendance well above tuition alone, making the state’s public colleges among the most expensive in the country for in-state students. UNH ranks among the top 10 public universities in the nation for highest in-state tuition, according to U.S. News and World Report.
The decision to increase tuition after six years of keeping costs stable was made independent of the state budget, but the decrease in funding didn’t help either.
“We had been talking about whether we could afford to keep tuition flat long before we had any information from the state on what the budget would be,” UNH Vice Provost of Enrollment Kimberly DeRego said. “We definitely were weighing the possibility that we would see reduced state support.”
Beyond the state cuts, broader inflationary pressures — including higher food costs, utility rates and the cost of staff and faculty benefits — have also contributed to rising costs for in-state students.
The University System is trying to develop strategies to support Granite State applicants and maintain in-state student enrollment amid rising costs.
DeRego highlighted a regional trend in which New Hampshire high school graduates pursuing higher education often attend college in neighboring states. Many students, she said, choose schools in Vermont, Maine, or Massachusetts that, in some cases, are closer to their home than the UNH Durham campus.
“In the current higher education marketplace, surrounding states are competing fiercely for students to secure the future workforce in their regions,” University System Director of Communications Lisa Thorne said in a statement. “Eighty percent of New Hampshire State support to USNH subsidizes the cost of in-state tuition to encourage NH students to stay here to learn and work.”
The state budget, signed into effect in June, slashed roughly $18 million of that two-year support for the University System. Expenditure funding for the three institutions has fallen to around $87 million, an 8.8% decrease from last year’s $95 million. This amount is projected to drop further to $77 million in 2027.
When New Hampshire students seek degrees away from home, they are less likely to return, studies show.
“Educating Granite Staters and keeping young people in New Hampshire is vital for building a pipeline of potential workers for in-demand careers and for helping ensure a robust, age-diverse labor force,” the Fiscal Policy Institute’s report stated. “Currently, the majority of New Hampshire high school students seeking four-year programs are leaving New Hampshire to earn their degrees in other states at one of the highest rates in the country.”
The report makes clear that high tuition costs and low state funding for higher education can leave long-term impacts on the financial well-being of students, families and the state as a whole.
“Granite Staters need affordable, accessible education pathways that lead to good jobs here in New Hampshire,” said Heller, the report’s author. “Investing in our students can help grow our workforce and improve the Granite State’s economic future.”
Reductions in state funding are expected to have a direct impact on student aid. While UNH continues to offer “a robust set of donor-funded scholarships,” DeRego said, programs such as the UNIQUE Scholarship and the Governor’s Scholarship could face shortfalls.
Meanwhile, students and their families are left footing the bills.
“I left UNH with $136,000 in student debt,” Bearor said. “I know friends who have it a lot worse than I do. If I had this much debt with just an English degree, it would be a lot harder to swallow.”
These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.
