The Executive Committee of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors has set the university budget as well as tuition and mandatory fees for the 2022-23 fiscal year (July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023) at its meeting held today in Richmond.
At its regularly scheduled meeting held June 7 in Blacksburg, the full board voted to delegate these decisions to the Executive Committee to allow for further development of the state budget. Although the state budget is not yet final, the board and university leaders expressed confidence that the major components of the higher education budget, representing a historic investment in higher education and Virginia Tech, will remain in the final state budget.
Facing significant cost pressures including statewide employee compensation increases, operations and other fixed cost inflationary increases, and investments to enhance the quality of a Virginia Tech education, the Executive Committee approved a base 3 percent tuition increase for all undergraduate and graduate students. However, recognizing the financial challenges faced by Virginians and in the interest of continuing to expand access and affordability to a Virginia Tech education, the Executive Committee instructed the university to offset the tuition increase for the coming year with a one-time scholarship to all in-state undergraduate students, bringing the net undergraduate tuition increase to zero.
The board asked for and the university agreed to this one-time adjustment to effectively freeze tuition for in-state undergraduate students for the coming academic year, noting the recent rapid increase in inflation across the nation has not yet been met with a comparable increase in wages and salaries for students and their families.
“Virginia Tech would like to express appreciation to the General Assembly and the administration for the largest investment in higher education in recent history,” said Virginia Tech President Tim Sands. “Their increase in support will help Virginia Tech avoid passing on the full extent of inflationary costs to our students and their families. The further action of the board to discount tuition for in-state undergraduate students down to the current rate will help our students and their families when they need it most.”
“This decision helps us to balance access and affordability for students and their families who seek a Virginia Tech education while investing in world-class faculty and campus programs and preserving the quality of a Virginia Tech degree,” said Rector Letitia “Tish” Long. “The state’s investment in higher education has helped us keep costs to our students and families down.”
Over the past four years the consumer price index has increased 20.4 percent while in-state tuition rates at Virginia Tech have increased 5.9 percent.
Base tuition for Virginia undergraduate students will increase $353, to $12,104 annually, while a one-time tuition mitigation scholarship will offset this increase, bringing the net tuition increase down to zero. Out-of-state undergraduate tuition will increase $925, totaling $31,754 annually.
Mandatory fees will increase $138 for a total of $2,562 next year. Annual room and board charges will increase by 4.9 percent, or $506 per year, to a total of $10,756.
When adding tuition and mandatory fees with room and board costs, the total cost in 2022-23 for a Virginia undergraduate student living on campus will be $25,069 after the one-time tuition mitigation scholarship. The total cost of an out-of-state undergraduate living on campus will be $45,676.
Virginia Tech ranks 10th of the 15 Virginia public universities in terms of total overall cost for resident undergraduate students. Virginia Tech continues to have the lowest mandatory fees for Virginia resident undergraduate students amongst all public four-year institutions in the commonwealth.
To further support low- and middle-income families who seek a Virginia Tech education, the university will allocate approximately $5.1 million in additional resources toward undergraduate financial aid programs next year, raising the total institutional support to more than $39.4 million for 2022-23. This is in addition to the one-time tuition mitigation scholarships.
Tuition and fees is the primary source of the university’s Educational and General Program (E&G) budget. In the current fiscal year, for example, tuition and fees from both in-state and out-of-state students accounted for $620.7 million (or 70.6 percent) of the $879.8 million total University Division E&G budget. The state provided $214.7 million (or 24.4 percent) toward the University Division E&G budget, and an additional $44.3 million (or 5.0 percent) came from other sources.
Virginia Tech’s Funds for the Future program provides 100 percent protection from tuition and fee increases for returning students with a family income of up to $100,000, resulting in a predictable and unchanging net tuition and fee package for all four years of their undergraduate study at Virginia Tech.
The university’s Presidential Scholarship Initiative will grow the incoming cohort in 2022-23, providing full four-year tuition, fees, and room and board scholarships to 95 incoming Virginia students next year, supporting a total program of 340 Virginia undergraduates.
Including university-funded support, Virginia Tech undergraduates received $140.4 million in grants and scholarships last fiscal year.
Virginia Tech will continue to discount undergraduate tuition by 10 percent during the summer session and winter session courses in Blacksburg to help students complete degrees at an accelerated pace during nontraditional times.
Tuition and mandatory fees for in-state graduate students will rise by $561 to $17,083 and for out-of-state graduate students by $990 to $32,433. The incremental impact of a tuition increase on graduate students is mitigated largely through tuition remissions. Nevertheless, the university is in the process of assessing financial support of graduate students and expects to address needs moving forward.
The total annual cost to Virginia and Maryland veterinary students will be $26,898, an increase of $812, and the total annual cost to out-of-state (and non-Maryland) veterinary students will be $57,369, an increase of $1,682.
Students enrolling at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine this summer will have a total annual cost of $57,721, an increase of $1,696.
In addition to setting tuition and fees, the board approved a $1.89 billion university budget for the next fiscal year, which would represent an approximately 3.7 percent budget growth compared with the adjusted 2021-22 budget. The proposed operating budget includes increases in student financial aid, a 5 percent stipend increase for graduate assistantships, and faculty and staff compensation increases contingent upon final state budget approval.
