A week after the Idaho Legislature failed to pass Senate Bill 1179, the Idaho State Board of Education announced its decision to continue with a tuition freeze for the upcoming 2021-2022 academic year.
Earlier this year, university presidents pledged to continue the tuition freeze if Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s recommended budget was approved. This included the University of Idaho, Boise State University and Idaho State University.
Senate Bill 1179 would have allocated over $631 million to Idaho’s four-year institutions, following Little’s budget recommendations. The suggested funding would have also restored over $15 million to the universities, previously a 5% holdback.
Due to uncertainty regarding the Idaho Legislature’s future decision on the budget and the legislative session’s extension, the board decided to move forward with no tuition increases despite the budget bill not passing.
“The Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee is working on a new higher education appropriation,” ISBE President Debbie Critchfield said. “We don’t know how long it will take to get approved and this is a critical time for our institutions in terms of recruiting students. Now they can at least move forward with their requests knowing resident undergraduate tuition increases are off the table.”
With the tuition freeze, UI will give up $1 million for every percent increase in tuition. In the 2020-2021 tuition freeze, the university lost a potential $2-3 million.
The previous freeze was agreed upon in 2019 to address higher education affordability in the state.
The ISBE will meet April 21-22 to discuss requests from each of Idaho’s four-year institutions.
Haadiya Tariq can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @haadiyatariq