The Southern Utah University campus. (Photo credit: Deseret News)
All but one of Utah’s nine public colleges and universities will increase their tuition and fees for the coming academic year. The exception is Southern Utah University in Cedar City, which did not ask for a tuition increase — instead proposing a modest cut in student fees.
While the cost of higher education has been rising faster that inflation for years, SUU President Scott Wyatt said the decision not to raise tuition was deliberate. In fact, the decision was based on a plan to keep the institution as accessible as possible.
“At Southern Utah University, we just made the decision that we were not going to increase the cost and that we were going to find ways to decrease the cost, to get rid of barriers,” Wyatt told KSL Newsradio.
Wyatt said the growth at Southern Utah University and support from the Legislature have made it possible to keep tuition level. SUU has grown to 13,000 students and added about 100 new faculty members in the past five years.
Tuition and fee increases at Utah’s other public colleges range from 1.56% at the University of Utah to 3.53% at Dixie State University.