Purdue Planning Two-Year Tuition Freeze

March 1, 2013 | 10:05 AM

By Rachel Morello

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Purdue University President Mitch Daniels announced a two-year tuition freeze Friday, reports Eric Weddle for the Lafayette Journal & Courier:

The gist of the news is this: Current base tuition for Indiana and non-Indiana resident students will remain at current levels until the end of the 2014-15 school year on the West Lafayette campus. This will be the first time in 37 years Purdue has not increased tuition going into a new budget cycle.

“I have found a broad consensus among faculty and staff to put the interests of our students and their families first,” Daniels said in a statement.

“In this period of national economic stagnation, it’s time for us to hit the pause button on tuition increases. Our students and their families deserve a high-value education that they can afford. We will fit our spending to their budgets — not the other way around. Purdue is a national leader in the value of its degrees, and we intend to increase that value further.”

The move will keep in-state tuition around $10,000 for the next two years.

As governor, Daniels pushed the state’s public colleges and universities to live within their means, tying funding to degree completion.

Just before Daniels took office, acting president Tim Sands told Indiana legislators Purdue hopes offering more summer classes will help more students graduate in four years.

“I think we’ll see much higher completion rates, much faster completion sometimes, but it will also allow students who do internships, study abroad to see less penalty in their time to graduation,” Sands said.

Weddle reports Purdue has requested a $1.1 million increase in state funding, an increase of less than half a percent.

UPDATE: Daniels says the tuition freeze is about keeping Purdue affordable — a real concern for the faculty and staff that have approached him since he became president.

“Over and over, I’ve been told, ‘Well, if we knew the money was going to that, or to scholarships, that would be something we could be enthusiastic about.’ So that’s the way we’re going to try to go at it,” says Daniels.