Penn State’s Board of Trustees Committee on Finance, Business and Capital Planning voted unanimously Thursday to recommend a tuition freeze for in-state undergraduate students for the 2018-19 school year.

The committee’s operating budget and tuition schedule proposal will preserve in-state undergraduate tuition at its current value if the budget is approved by the entire Board during its Friday meeting at the university’s Berks campus.

The freeze comes after a three percent  increase in Penn State’s general state appropriation, which now stands at $237.3 million, was approved by the Pennsylvania House Appropriations Committee last month.

“Included within [the budget’s] tuition proposal is a zero percent tuition increase for Pennsylvania residential undergraduates,” said University Budget Officer Mary Lou Ortiz. The budget will impose a 2.7 percent to 3.6 percent tuition increase on undergraduate students who are not Pennsylvania residents. 

The Board last voted to freeze in-state tuition for the 2015-16 school year in a historic vote, championed by President Eric Barron, that marked the university’s first tuition freeze in almost five decades. In-state tuition for undergraduate students at University Park increased by 2.74 percent — or $232 — last year.

The committee’s overall recommended budget totals $6.5 billion.