University of Alabama System votes to freeze in-state tuition for 2023-24

In-state tuition has been frozen for the 2023-24 academic year at the University of Alabama, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Non-resident students will pay an increase of 3% for 2023-24.

The University of Alabama System board of trustees voted on the numbers in its Friday meeting.

Before 2022-23, for which the system voted an increase of 3% for in-state students, and 4% for non-resident students, said to account for inflation, there had been five consecutive years of no in-state tuition raises at UA, and four at UAH and UAB. Out-of-state students had seen three years with no tuition raise.

In remarks before the board, UA System Chancellor Finis St. John praised the attention to fiscal health that has allowed the system to keep tuition levels below national rates of inflation.

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"While sometimes tedious and difficult, minding the finances of this enterprise will always be at the forefront," St. John said, to ensure accessibility while maintaining expected standards of excellence.

"As Alabama's largest employer, and as the university system that provides higher education to more Alabamians than any other, we have a duty to be faithful stewards of every dollar we receive, from taxpayers, students and their parents, and donors who care about our universities, and our health care system," he said.

All have heard concerns about rising costs of higher education, and about returns on that investment, especially during the past several years of "unprecedented inflation," he said. St. John emphasized that the UA System has been bucking that trend. The years of tuition freezes are unique in Alabama's higher education, he said "... and rare, and rarely matched, nationwide."

The board's President Pro Tempore W. Stancil Starnes credited careful fiscal management by the system, and the three institution's leaders, for making the tuition-freeze vote possible.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: University of Alabama System to freeze in-state tuition for 2023-24