Heciel Nieves Bonilla, News Editor
Members of the VCU Board of Visitors, the university’s highest governing body, have identified the Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program and the university’s high rate of in-state students as key reasons to increase tuition for the 2026-27 academic year.
The comments were part of a broader conversation about VCU’s finances at the board’s “Enrollment and Budget Workshop” on March 23 and 24. Board members saw a presentation that outlined potential tuition increases from 2.5% to 4.9%.
The meeting’s discussion on budget, tuition and fees was led by VCU chief financial officer Meredith Weiss, who laid out the case as to why the university could have no choice but to continue raising tuition.
“When you think about these four levers — you have enrollment and retention, you have efficiencies, you have state support and you have tuition,” Weiss said. “So if we’ve already been as efficient as we can be, we’re gonna be efficient, we put that in there. We’re working on growing enrollment. The state has given us what they’ve given us. The last thing left is tuition.”
A presentation by the board laid out six potential percentages by which tuition could increase, if state support remains as-is. In order to balance its budget while also contributing to some of its “value investment” priorities, VCU would have to raise tuition by at least 3.5%.
Under these circumstances, a 3.5% tuition raise — or $473 per student — would correspond to $1.3 million in value investments, which would allow the university to increase the amount of academic internships it offers “from ~1,800 to ~5,800.” A 3.9% increase would also allow VCU to invest in high-demand academic programs.
According to the presentation, only a 4.5% increase in tuition would allow VCU to increase graduate student stipends many find insufficient, which the board’s nonvoting graduate student representative advocated for at the last board of visitors meeting.
Finally, a 4.9% (or $662 per student) increase would correspond to the university hiring six more faculty members “in emerging and high-demand areas,” along with all the above investments.
Conversation about the proposed rates was lively at the meeting. One member, ophthalmologist and medical director Kenneth Lipstock, weighed the community ramifications of raising tuition by that highest amount against the potential benefits of the investments.
“Board members get flak from community and friends and family, and colleagues, about raising tuition — ‘what the heck are you doing down there?’” Lipstock said. “If we raise it $662, if we raise that, what’s coming back at us? I mean, what is the danger of doing that? Because to me that seems like a low amount to raise tuition because of the value I discussed before of getting all four things on the checklist.”
The board cited several outside factors as contributing to its need to consider these tuition raises.
Their biggest concern is the high cost of the Virginia Military Students and Dependents Education Program, which waives tuition and fees to the dependents and spouses of missing, killed-in-action and certain disabled military members, according to a previous report by The CT.
“While we are proud that military families choose VCU, our costs for this program are the highest among our state peers,” said VCU spokesperson Brian McNeill. “And while over time the state has increased its support for this mandated program, the support they provide doesn’t fully cover it and demand has outpaced state support. If it were fully funded, there would be no need for a tuition increase.”
Another strategy the university has considered to increase revenue is bringing in more out-of-state students.
VCU’s 9% out-of-state student proportion is similar to Old Dominion University’s 10% and slightly below George Mason’s 16%, but is far below William & Mary, Virginia Tech, University of Virginia and James Madison University.
Throughout the meeting, board members cited VCU’s identity as a public university that serves many lower-income Virginians as a reason to tread carefully with how much to expand out-of-state tuition.
“We are who we are and we serve an immensely important Virginia population — I’m glad VCU does what it does, I think it serves an important service to the state,” said board member Peter Farell. “So I hope we get more out-of-state to a point. I never want to see VCU in the 70s in-state. That would make me furious.”
On the other hand, Lipstock believes bringing down costs significantly for out-of-state students is a promising way to increase recruitment to help with revenue issues. Weiss noted that while the presentation described a plan wherein costs for out-of-state students rise with those of other students, the board could decide to keep them the same instead.
“That is a difficult message to hear, that we are raising rates only on in-state students,” Weiss said. That is where we really do need help from the commonwealth.”
VCU president Michael Rao also weighed in, bringing up that VCU’s endowment is small compared to that of a university like UVA.
“The real need here is to deal with the appropriation per in-state student,” Rao said.
Third-year computer science student Patrick Tran said it has become progressively harder for him to pay for his tuition. He gave some suggestions as to ways the university could reduce costs, such as reevaluating program funding.
“What comes to my mind is the athletic department,” Tran said. “I feel like they’re getting a lot of recognition. Like, it’s really good, but also for the mass amount of students, it’s not really benefiting them at all. The school doesn’t have that much spirit to where we need to be throwing a lot of money in the athletics department.”
Michael Boggs, another first year cinema student, said rather than raising tuition to get more money, the funding should be taken from Rao’s salary, as he thinks he is paid too much.
First-year cinema student Trudy Hardman said she thinks tuition raises will deter students from coming to VCU. She thinks that to increase out-of-state students, the university should offer more scholarships to them.