Colorado State tuition hike for 2018-19 likely to outpace inflation

GREENWOOD VILLAGE — It's too early in the budget process to know what kind of tuition increase CSU will ask its governing board to approve for the 2018-19 school year, but the system's chief financial officer said the request will likely outpace the 2.8 percent rate of inflation that was used as an example Wednesday.

In the example, full-time resident undergraduates on the Fort Collins campus would pay an additional $244 a year, or $9,396, in tuition under a 2.8 percent increase, with non-resident undergraduate tuition increasing by $728 a year to $27,388. The example assumes faculty and staff would receive a cost-of-living increase equal to the rate of inflation.

Forecasters are projecting economic growth in the state of 6.1 percent for the current fiscal year, CSU system CFO Lynn Johnson told the Board of Governors at its August meetings at CSU-Global's campus, with a revised projection due in September. CSU is just beginning its budgeting process for fiscal year 2019. Final approval by the governing board is expected in May of 2018.

The only way Colorado State University could propose a lower tuition increase without sacrificing the quality of education it provides, she said, would be for the state to increase its funding.

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That seems unlikely given the requirement that CSU and other major state departments submit preliminary budgets with a 2 percent reduction in funding as part of the process of building their budgets for the 2019 fiscal year. Those budgets, required by a state Senate bill passed earlier this year, won't necessarily be adopted, but they will be part of the discussion as the Joint Budget Committee begins working on the state budget.

"Setting a 2.8 percent or comparable increase in tuition is not even going to get us in the ballpark of covering a comparable salary increase," Johnson said, "Well you have to solve what's the other piece of that? Well the other part of that, historically, has been the state comes in and funds the rest.

"In this particular case, given what we know today, that doesn't look like that's an option on the table, given that we're supposed to come forward with a 2 percent budget reduction."

CSU students are facing a 5 percent tuition increase for 2017-18.

The university's annual budget is more than $1.25 billion.

Follow reporter Kelly Lyell at twitter.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news

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