Update: The Penn State Board of Trustees approved the 2023-24 room and board rates during its meeting on Friday.
Original story:
University Park students will see a larger increase in room and board rates than those at Commonwealth Campuses in 2023-24 under a plan recommended for approval by a Penn State Board of Trustees committee on Thursday afternoon.
A standard double room and the mid-level meal plan at University Park will go up by $224 per semester, or 3.56%, according to the proposal approved by the Committee on Finance Business and Capital Planning with one dissenting vote. The standard double room will increase by $120 a semester to $3,807 and the most popular meal plan option would rise by $104 to $2,708 — making the total average room and board room and board rate $6,515 per semester.
Commonwealth Campuses will have an aggregate increase of 1.78%. Six campuses — Abington, Altoona, Beaver, Berks, Brandywine and Harrisburg — will have a 2.15% increase, while five — Behrend, Greater Allegheny, Hazleton, Mont Alto and Schuylkill — will see a 1.41% increase. That includes a 2.25% room rate increase for the former group, a 1% increase for the latter and an across-the-board 2% increase, or $52 per semester, for mid-level meal plans at all Commonwealth Campuses.
Rates will vary by room and meal type. White Course Apartment rates for graduate students and families at University Park will remain unchanged. The detailed proposed rates can be viewed in the document below, and finalized rates will be available at liveon.psu.edu/rates.
The full board will consider and likely approve the proposed rates during its meeting at 1 p.m. on Friday in Robb Hall of the Hintz Family Alumni Center.
It marks the first time Penn State is proposing a differentiated rate increase for University Park and other campuses, Sara Thorndike, senior vice president for finance and business, said. Room and board rate increases over the past 10 years have ranged from 2.55% to 4.27%
The rate increases are due to operating increases and facility costs. A “significant increase” of 21.7% is anticipated for food costs, while utilities are expected to go up by 13.3%. Thorndike said food cost increases are in part due to an increase in occupancy, but both food and utility cost spikes are largely a result of inflation. Other projected increases include 11.4% for operating expenses such as employee salaries and benefits and facility maintenance, 6% for new debt for renovated residence halls and 3% for the Residence Life program.
Penn State Housing and Food Services is a self-supported enterprise that uses no tuition or state funds.
“We do continually review and evaluate our expenses and are regularly looking for ways to reduce costs by renegotiating supplier contracts, prioritizing capital investments, optimizing buying strategies, reducing inventories and food waste and employing technologies that enable sales growth and waste reduction,” Sara Thorndike said.
The university’s room and board rates are typically less than the average of Big Ten institutions, according to Thorndike’s presentation to the committee.
Undergraduate housing capacity statewide for 2023-24 will be 20,395 beds, a net increase of 473 (295 at the campuses and 178 at University Park). Bigler, Curtin and Packer halls at University Park are scheduled to go back online for fall 2023 after undergoing renovations, while the final phase of the East Halls renovation project, involving Hastings, Snyder and Stone halls, will be completed by the end of fiscal year 2024
For fall 2023, the university projects 100% occupancy at University Park and 80.2% at the Commonwealth Campuses. University Park has 102.8% occupancy in fall 2022 and has 99.8% for the spring.
