UH regents OK tuition hike

Students at Hawaii Community College and the University of Hawaii at Hilo will see tuition hikes in the coming years of up to 2 percent.

The UH Board of Regents on Thursday approved a three-year plan that starts in the 2017-18 school year and caps increases at 2 percent systemwide.

Under the plan, students at every campus will see no increase in the first year. The second and third year, HawCC resident students will pay 2 percent more each year. UH-Hilo resident students will see 1 percent yearly increases in the second and third year, equating to $72 more each year.

The new tuition plan is nearly the same as one proposed earlier this year, though the board amended it slightly Thursday so that UH-Manoa students will also pay no increase in the first year. Previously, Manoa students were set to pay 2 percent more that year.

UH officials previously said they hoped the plan’s relatively modest increases would be welcomed by students. They said affordable tuition would also help attract more students to the UH system, which has faced declining enrollment in recent years at nearly every campus.

However in April, when officials introduced the tuition plan at a town hall meeting at HawCC, some students testified in opposition — despite the modest increases.

UH spokesman Dan Meisenzahl said Thursday officials are “doing everything they can to keep the costs down.” He said UH schools are still a bargain in comparison to similar institutions nationwide.

For example, he said, Hawaii’s community colleges ranked No. 1 in the country in a 2016 report of college affordability by the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. The state’s public four-year colleges ranked No. 7 on that same report.

“Compared to the rest of the nation, our community colleges are a great deal,” Meisenzahl said. “We’ll continue to do everything we can to keep costs down.”