UVM continues to freeze tuition for fifth straight year

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - The University of Vermont is extending its freeze on tuition for another year.

They also are making it free for certain in-state students to attend the university. This will be the fifth year that UVM will not raise tuition and fees for students at the university.

It will also be the 4th year of a freeze on costs for room and board.

Students were excited to hear that their tuition will not be raised for next school year. Sophomore Amelia Hallen says, “It’s already super high for out-of-state tuition. It would be great if it wasn’t raised. I’d love that.”

Ella Goldstein, another UVM student, added “It’s already really expensive to just get room and board and textbooks are insane so adding more tuition money onto that would just be really hard.”

This tuition freeze will save a total of $6,000 for in-state students and $14,00 for out-of-state students over 4 years.

UVM President Suresh Garimella says “Across these five years of tuition freeze, the families that send their children here and the students have saved $163 million.”

The board of trustees approved this measure today, along with a measure that will allow in-state students to attend UVM tuition free if their families have an adjusted gross income of $60,000 or less, something current students approve of.

UVM student Izzy Rosselli says “I think that should absolutely happen. Education equality for higher-level education is imperative if we want to close the wealth gap, so I think that would be great.”

Andrew MacDonald, another student, added “It wouldn’t benefit me, but I do support stuff like that. I think there should be more opportunities for poorer folk to go to college.”

This will begin with next year’s freshman class. President Suresh Garimella says this means almost half of Vermont households will be able to send their children to UVM, tuition-free, without any fees.

Garimella adds, “UVM is doing its best to be as affordable and provide access to the students and I’d like to have no one consider UVM beyond their reach and make it more and more accessible to students.”

UVM says the tuition freeze has not been a result of layoffs; rather it has been a result of the success of the rest of the university, plus an increase of $10 million that the state appropriates to the university.

Over the last year, there has been a 63% increase in the number of applicants.

UVM does continue to be one of the most expensive in-state tuitions compared to all other states, but the officials here hope that continued tuition freeze will allow more students to access education at UVM.

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