As students plan their classes and register for the upcoming fall semester, our legislature has approved next year’s budget. Since the financial crisis, many states have slashed funding for education left and right and even though we’re hearing that we’ve “recovered”, we are still facing education cuts in Arizona. Next year, public colleges and universities will have $99 million less than they did in 2014; that is a 14% cut in funding. Arizona State will be taking a majority of that cut. Guess where the schools are going to make up that cut? They’re going to have to use your tuition. That’s right; schools will have to rely on local funding and tuition to make up that cut. This means that tuition will most likely rise and college will seem even less affordable.
Before Governor Ducey and the legislature agreed to the $99 million higher education cuts, President Michael Crow stated that there would be no tuition hike for in-state students. However, for you out-of-state collegiettes, you might be seeing a price hike. In-state tuition for the 2014-15 school year was roughly $9,484 while out-of-state tuition was roughly $28,830, according to the ASU tuition calculator. From this information, it seems that out-of-state students cannot afford to foot the bill anymore.
President Crow has not released how ASU will make up for the deficit that this budget has caused. As of now, many students don’t know how this will affect their time at ASU. Many are hopeful that raising tuition is not the path President Crow chooses to close the budget gap.