With new state funding unlikely, Minnesota State predicts largest tuition hike in more than a dozen years

Minnesota State officials Tuesday weighed tuition increases ranging from 3.5% to 9%, likely the largest tuition increase at its colleges and universities in more than a dozen years.

Officials said at the board of trustees meeting that a significant tuition hike is necessary for the 270,000 students in the system’s 33 schools because it’s unlikely the Legislature will provide any new operating funding in the coming years’ budget and enrollment is projected to be flat.

The governor’s recommended budget included no increase to the higher education budget, which makes up 6% of the state’s general fund.

Bill Maki, Minnesota State’s vice chancellor for finance and facilities, said he believes the upper end of the price hike range seemed “too aggressive” to many trustees Tuesday, adding that a 9% increase seemed “off the table.”

Individual campuses in the state’s largest system of colleges and universities are working through their own budget scenarios, and some, like Winona State University, said they’re modeling increases as high as 9.5%.

“That’s the funding we’d need to balance the budget,” Winona State University President Ken Janz said in an interview Tuesday.

Other state institutions may also be increasing tuition. The University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus projected a 4.5% increase for next year when it provided estimates in early February, said U spokesperson Jake Ricker, emphasizing it was only a ballpark figure so early in the year.

In that same February report, Minnesota State had estimated an average increase of 7% across its schools for both years of the next biennium, an increase that would total 14.5% over two years.

Whatever level of tuition increase Minnesota State implements, Minnesota State is anticipating a similar increase the following year of the biennium, Maki said. That makes for a potentially hefty increase for current freshmen and sophomores.

Each of the colleges and universities’ tuition may end up differing slightly, and the hike could decrease if the Legislature provides new funding before it adjourns in May, officials said. Minnesota State’s trustees set tuition at their June meeting.

This year, undergraduate tuition and fees for Minnesotans attending the systems’ colleges runs about $6,189 while universities average about $10,034.

At Minnesota State, most undergraduates’ tuition was frozen for fiscal years 2024 and 2025; lawmakers required the freeze when they gave the system an additional $293 million to spend over two years. A few programs were given special permission to increase tuition if costs had increased “due to extraordinary circumstances beyond the control of the college or university.”

In fiscal years 2022 and 2023, tuition increased by 3.5% at Minnesota State universities. Colleges’ tuition increased 3.3% and 3.4%, respectively.

In October 2024, Minnesota State officials had estimated the tuition increases for the biennium would be 3.5% each year, but that percentage went up as the academic year continued, Maki said.

Minnesota State has two main revenue sources: State funding and tuition.

Since 2014, Minnesota State tuition across colleges and universities has increased an average of 1.7% per year, but the annual inflation rate has averaged about 2.8%.

Bernie Omann, the Minnesota State government relations lead, told the trustees Tuesday that he was struggling with the financial situation. He called a 5% hike a “more palatable” increase.

The Legislature won’t look kindly on big tuition hikes, he said.

“We can’t tuition our way out of this [financial situation],” he said. “We just can’t.”

In 2026, funding from the state will decrease compared to this year and last, Maki said, assuming there is no new funding for higher education.

“We will have $45 million less next biennium in operating funding and then we will lose some of our tuition freeze funding as well,” Maki said. “So a total of $70 million between the two will be lost next biennium.”

As such, some institutions are expecting cuts. An email from the provost at Minnesota State University Mankato in late March told students that the university had a large number — 300-plus — degrees and certificates compared to peer institutions.

“Some of these programs are no longer drawing the level of student interest or meeting identifiable employer demand that support keeping them,” read the email from David Hood, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. “Academic administration and faculty have been working together to identify which programs we might consider suspending, merging or redesigning in order to focus attention and resources more effectively.”

Mankato “certainly isn’t alone” in reviewing programs and services and looking for potential cuts, Maki said Tuesday, adding that a majority of campuses are doing so.

Roshit Niraula, student body president at Minnesota State University Mankato, said he believes Mankato’s president will likely present a proposed tuition hike of 8% to the trustees. That’s the increase members of student government have reviewed so far, though there’s another meeting May 1.

Other university campuses have been talking about 7% to 9.5% increases with their student governments, he said.

The 8% increase would have a big impact, Niraula said, but it’s “a reasonable request” for the university, given tuition has been frozen at Mankato for four years now.

“I think we’re catching up with inflation and where we need to be,” he said.

Mankato is looking at delaying equipment purchases and only hiring staff when absolutely necessary for a year to save money, he said.

At the U, Ricker said a tuition increase “would need to be explored” due to the anticipated lack of new state funding. Last year, the U increased in-state, undergraduate tuition 4.5% at the Twin Cities and Rochester campuses and 1.5% at its other three locations.

The U declined an interview request about its budget or tuition rates at this point in the year, Ricker said.

The U reviews its recommended annual operating budget, including potential tuition changes, at the June meeting of the Board of Regents and usually takes action on the budget at a special meeting later that month, Ricker said.