Charlese Freeman
Student Life Editor
Consistent tuition rates are here for ESU students.
Every school year, the tuition rates climbs, which makes continuing college education more finically trying.
Last January, the PASSHE Board of Governors approved ESU’s Warrior Promise system to lock tuition rates for all four years of a student’s academic career.
Now that the fall semester has started the Warrior Promise has been implemented.
The new wave of freshman and transfer students attending ESU will be the first students subject to the Warrior Promise.
The questions of how the Warrior Promise will benefit continuing students and also improve ESU’s falling retention rates remain in the air.
Dr. Brenda Friday, Director of University Relations says, “The success of the program will be demonstrated by improvements in retention and graduation rates of the new students who entered this fall. “The first point of measurement will be next fall when the first year retention rate of this year’s entering freshman, the class of 2022, is determined.”
The new program specifically targets students who have just entered the university because although every student’s tuition will increase the new students have will more than the upperclassmen.
Friday continues, “Continuing undergraduate students may sign up for Warrior Promise at any point in their academic career and have their tuition rate fixed for the next four years at the tuition rate established for new undergraduates.” “If they were to sign on this fall, their tuition rate would remain the same as that of the incoming freshmen/transfer students through the spring semester of 2022.”
Aside from ESU’s current and future rebranding strategies for the 2018-2019 academic year, the Warrior Promise has potential to be an additional way to improve retention rates. However, for continuing students the Warrior Promise may be pointless or even detrimental depending on how far along individual students are in their academic career.
Despite the increase of tuition each year, prior to the Warrior Promise, current sophomores and juniors will be paying less than the 2018 freshman and transfer students.
So why would continuing students want to pay additional?
The description of the Warrior Promise suggests that every undergraduate student will successfully save money by enrolling. This not the case for most continuing students.
Kiera Leyden, sophomore, explains, “I tried to sign up for the Warrior Promise but, based on the tuition rate of this year (2018-2019) it would be best to stick with the regular tuition rates.
Although The Warrior Promise does not benefit most continuing ESU students, the program still great potential to save the new freshman and transfer students a financial burdens of tuition increase.
Friday concludes, “we will have to wait until May 2022 to report on the four year graduation rate of those students in the Class of 2022.”
Only time will tell how effective the Warrior Promise will be in lessening financial anxiety and improving retention rates.
Email Charlese at:
cfreeman2@live.esu.edu
