On Friday, Senate President Karen Spilka said that she hopes the proposed senate budget bill for fiscal year 2020 will address rising debt load of students enrolled in the University of Massachusetts system.
According to the new budget, which was passed on May 23, the University of Massachusetts system will receive nearly $560 million, a 7 percent increase from the current year, so long as they freeze tuition and student fees for the upcoming academic year.
“In the budget, we gave the U-Mass system a big chunk of change and then said that the tuition and fees would have to be frozen [and] that they would hopefully work with us to figure out ways to do that,” Spilka said during an interview with Boston Public Radio on Friday.
For each year of the past four years the U-Mass system has increased tuition by 2.5 percent. At the system’s flagship campus in Amherst, in-state tuition and board can cost a student nearly $30,000 and $50,000 for out of state students. School officials fear, however, that the tuition freeze will require budget cuts of up to $22.2 million if they are not provided more funding from the state.
In an interview with The Boston Globe, interim U-Mass Chancellor Katherine Newman said that without the ability to raise tuition and fees, the system may have to consider a combination of faculty and administrative staff layoffs and cuts to financial aid.
Despite this, Spilka stands by the senate proposal. She said that integral to the senate’s consideration is the rising cost of student debt throughout the state.
“The Senate’s very concerned about the increasing debt for higher ed and the public higher ed costs [for students],” Spilka said. “What's been lost throughout this is that we are trying to control the costs for the kids so when they graduate they don’t have as high a debt.”
The F.Y. 2020 budget also includes increases in funding for K-12 public education, ESL programs, and the state’s Chapter 70 fund that are distributed to struggling public schools throughout the state.
This article has been updated to reflect the correct date the Senate budget was passed. It was passed on May 23, not on May 28. The proposal was unveiled on May 7.
