Penn State University Park students will officially experience tuition increases for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years following budget approvals by the Board of Trustees Friday afternoon.

All in-state University Park students can expect a 2% tuition increase, while out-of-state students will undergo a 4% increase. Meanwhile, there will be no change for in-state Commonwealth Campus students, but a 1% increase for out-of-state undergraduate Commonwealth Campus students. World Campus students will also experience a 1% increase over the next two fiscal years.

“The $9.5 and $9.6 million dollar budgets include no tuition increases to Pennsylvania resident undergraduate students at Penn State’s Commonwealth campuses,” Penn State Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Sara Thorndike said. “This means approximately 43% of all Pennsylvania resident undergraduates would see no tuition increase for the next two years. Modest tuition increases at University Park and modest room and board increases at all campuses are proposed to fund salary and other inflationary increases in each year.”

The tuition increase would continue to address the university’s projected $140 million budget deficit for the 2022-23 school year. After pursuing savings by way of deferred spending, contract savings, Commonwealth COVID-19 grants, and more, the budget deficit has decreased to $63 million.

The Trustees voted 26-5-1 to raise student tuition rates for the third consecutive year. Trustees Ted Brown, Alvin de Levie, Barry Fenchak, Anthony Lubrano, and Jay Paterno voted against the increase, while Cynthia Dunn abstained from voting.

Lubrano notably voted “no” at the Committee on Finance, Business, and Capital Planning’s Thursday meeting to further consider the tuition increases after vowing to maintain affordability throughout his Trustee re-election campaign. The remaining four dissenting Trustees have similarly each disputed tuition increases within their positions.

Trustee Brown was the only Trustee to participate in the discussion before the vote and mentioned the possibility to bolster enrollment at Commonwealth campuses in order to minimize tuition increases.

“We would not need to have a tuition increase for in-state [students] if we filled 1,000 of the 10,000 empty seats at Commonwealth campuses,” Brown said.

Last summer, the group agreed to raise University Park students’ tuition by 5% along with a 2.5% salary increase for most Penn State employees. This year’s Board of Trustees summer meeting, though, will mark the first time the board has approved a budget for the following two fiscal years at the same time.