Pitt hikes tuition, room and board costs for fall 2021

The cost of Pitt education is increasing this fall as the university prepares to resume routine operations after more than a year of pandemic restrictions.

The increases, adopted Tuesday, call for a 2.5% bump to the lowest base tuition at Pitt’s Oakland campus, taking the cost for Pennsylvania residents from $18,628 to $19,092 a year. At the school’s regional campuses, including the Greensburg, Johnstown and Bradford campuses, base tuition for state residents is increasing 1.5%, from $13,198 to $13,394 a year.

Undergraduate tuition for out-of-state residents will increase by 4.5%, boosting base tuition from $32,656 to $34,124 a year, while increases at the regional campus will be held to 1.5%, boosting base tuition there from $24,666 to $25,034 a year.

Room and board costs also are increasing. Officials said housing prices will jump 5% a year at Pitt’s Oakland campus and 2-4% at its regional campuses, while dining costs will increase 3% a year at all campuses.

The cost increases, the first since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, follow a year in which Pitt froze tuition and room and board at 2019-20 levels for the 2020-21 school year as the university reopened on a hybrid basis with a combination of in-person and remote learning.

Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher said the school took a number of steps to soften the blow of the pandemic, including freezing staff and faculty salaries, offering early retirements, curtailing nonessential hiring and travel and pausing most construction projects.

This fall, as Pitt returns more routine operations, officials approved to a 7.2% increase in the operational budget, boosting it from $2.4 to $2.6 billion, adopted a $351 million capital budget and OK’d a permanent 1% budget reduction across the university to achieve a balanced spending plan.

Gallagher said the budget figures represent Pitt’s “first steps toward a new, post-pandemic normal and a return to in-person instruction this fall.”

“The approved budgets balance our efforts to move on from last year’s budget disruptions and begin to engage in a fuller recovery,” Gallagher said.