Maryland freezes in-state tuition for third year at public universities

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - For the third consecutive year, tuition will be frozen for in-state undergraduates at Maryland’s 11 public universities.

“From Maine to California, we’re seeing double-digit tuition increases,” said William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland.

“I travel around the country, and when I tell people about our increase of funding and no tuition increase, they look at me in disbelief,” Kirwan said at a news conference Wednesday at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

The system’s Board of Regents voted Wednesday to keep in-state tuition at 2007 levels because state funding for the state universities increased this year by 9 percent.

Tuition will increase up to 5.2 percent for out-of-state undergraduates and up to 4 percent for in-state graduate students.

For at least the 12th year in a row, the system raised room and board fees between $200 and $300.

Gov. Martin O’Malley and Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown joined Kirwan in announcing the freeze on tuition, which varies from campus to campus. Tuition at UMBC, for example, is nearly $9,000 a year.

Holding the line on college costs has boosted the state universities’ affordability from sixth-most expensive system in the nation to 16th, O’Malley said.

Students who entered a state college in the fall of 2005 and graduate in the spring of 2009 will never experience a tuition increase — a fact not lost on John Doyle, a rising UMBC senior.

“It’s a challenge to pay for college,” said Doyle, 21. “I think it’s a progressive policy to stick with the same tuition.”

To make college more affordable, the state legislature created the nation’s first fund dedicated exclusively to higher education.

Of the system’s fiscal 2009 $4.1 billion budget, $1.08 billion is state money, including funds from the new $50 million Higher Education Investment Fund.

kvolkmann@baltimoreexaminer.com

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