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Decision of Penn state on charging lower tuition fee this fall semester is strongly based on support from Washington and Harrisburg legislators. Recently, the Department of Education, America ruled that in order to apply for the Federal stimulus funds, Pennsylvania must necessarily include the institutions run by state. This fall semester tuition fee increase in Penn State is by far the lowest in recent times. Depending on its residency status and location of campus, the fee increase ranges between 3.7 to 4.5 percent.

The decision regarding lowered tuition fee increase was ratified by the Board of Trustees executive committee, Penn State in July. According to Graham Spanier, the Penn State President, in keeping with rising tuition fee cost concerns, there is an effort to keep the fee increase low with the help of a stable Commonwealth appropriation and support from Pennsylvania Congressional delegation members, feedback from House of Representatives in Pennsylvania senate and support from the Department of Education, US.

A letter asking for stimulus funding by Pennsylvania was however returned by the Education Department.  The department however indicated that it was not fair excluding state-run universities from stimulus funding and they are as eligible for funding as the public universities which can help them cut down on their tuition fee.

Opposing the Commonwealth’s application and supporting Penn State, fifteen Congress members wrote to the Secretary of Education. According to this letter, the application of Commonwealth is against the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of America according to which public institutions are as eligible to receive funds from the State as the state-run institutions. According to Spanier, the positive response and announcement by the Governor was due to the efforts of the Congress which supported their position.

Commonwealth is facing huge fiscal challenges and there is a sense of uncertainty around the Commonwealth budget passage. Spanier said that irrespective of these uncertainties, they were going ahead with setting lower tuition fee increases as this decision is sensitive to students and their parents. A major risk has been taken here to go ahead with lower increase in tuition fee without the appropriation. In case the appropriation does not occur, they are in trouble. In that case, a lot of planned reserve has to be eliminated by the university. They may have to implement many other cuts amounting to millions of dollars and may even have to reduce employee benefits.

At least five times in the past, appropriation for Penn State has been cut forcing a significant rise in tuition fee. This year, most of the employees have forgone increase in pay helping with the trimming of university budget. Various other operational sectors have seen a budget trim to ensure continued student funding.

The State of Pennsylvania provides education to almost 160,000 students. In fact, four universities related to the state here is the single largest provider of higher education to Commonwealth. They also significantly contribute to the State’s research initiatives in various sectors including agricultural outreach, medical discovery and service at high level, educational programming and economic impact.