Jeremy Wright-Kim speaks with Pittsburgh's Public Source about the many factors that go into a college’s decision to raise tuition 

The University of Pittsburgh recently announced a tuition-free program that will be offered to in-state students at its four branch campuses. However, the program is not available to students who attend the university’s main campus in Pittsburgh, where they are also facing an increase in tuition, reports Pittsburgh's Public Source. The announcement makes Pitt the first public university in Pennsylvania to offer a tuition-free program, a move that has been lauded by state officials for making higher education more accessible. But some Pitt students question why the program brings no relief to their costly tuition at the university’s main campus.

As a public institution, Pitt receives funding from the State of Pennsylvania. But even “robust” state funding wouldn’t eliminate the need to raise tuition, says Assistant Professor Jeremy Wright-Kim, whose research examines the role and impact of public policy in addressing and/or perpetuating inequities in American higher education.

Wright-Kim tells Public Source that there are “lots of other financial mechanisms at play,” such as endowments and federal funding that impact prices. These sometimes conflicting factors make it difficult to balance both student need and the institution’s bottom line.

When setting tuition prices for students, Wright-Kim says institutions often engage in what they view as an “efficient approach, which is to charge the students who can pay the highest amount that they can pay, and use that revenue to offset the cost for students who can’t pay.”

He says that tuition-free policies follow that same model. Although he doesn’t view Pitt’s new regional tuition-free program as “insanely inequitable” by excluding the main campus, he understands the criticism. Wright-Kim argues that institutions need both state and local support to ensure that growth doesn’t come at the expense of anyone.