Our Lady of the Lake University is freezing tuition for the next four years starting with the 2024 fall semester, the school announced this week.
OLLU President Abel A. Chávez told the San Antonio Report the move will help more students complete all four years of college.
“We know that of the students who do not retain, most of them are not retaining due to financial related burdens,” he said. “So this allows them and us to continue to help one another, to find them institutional aid, whether it’s need- or merit-based aid, or external aid to to help them make ends meet.”
With a locked-in number, those calculations are more predictable, he added.
Tuition will increase 1% from the 2023 fall semester to fall 2024 before being locked in, according to a university official. That follows a 2% increase from fall 2022 to fall 2023.
Average yearly tuition for an undergraduate at the school is currently $31,112, plus $944 in fees.
The freeze, which is being called OLLU4U, will apply to students attending full-time who were enrolled as of fall 2023 and those that start in August 2024. No plans have been made for what will happen to tuition for students enrolled in the fall of 2025, according to university officials.
Chávez said the program is expected to save students thousands of dollars over four years. The leader, who has been in place for a year and a half, said he identified personally with the needs faced by many families.
“As a first-generation learner myself, who … many years ago, always struggled and fought to make ends meet, especially as an undergraduate student, I know what families are going through,” he said. “All of my time in higher ed has always been about access and affordability.”
At a Feb. 10 ceremony to officially launch the program, OLLU assistant director for admissions Johnny Garcia directed padlocks to be clicked shut in a chain as balloons were released and confetti rained down.
In the last legislative session, state-funded colleges were directed to freeze tuition as part of a $700 million funding package. That mandate did not apply to private colleges, like OLLU.
This article has been updated to correct that the ceremony to launch the program occurred Feb. 10.
