Students and President Daniels react to tuition freeze

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Purdue sophomore Matthew Rodgers spends almost 20 hours a week working at Greyhouse Coffee near the Purdue University campus.

Rodgers relies on loans to pay for his $7,000 a semester tuition. The money he earns at his job, he puts toward groceries and gas.

"The point of working here isn't to save up money, it's just to help make my loans less," said Rodgers.

On Friday, Purdue President Mitch Daniels announced a tuition freeze for the main campus of Purdue University for the next two years.

Rodgers said the tuition freeze will change his life.

"I don't have to work as many hours to try to keep up and I won't have to worry about taking out even more loans," said Rodgers. "The loans I already do take out, they just barely cover all of it."

While it will save Rodgers some big time money, Daniels said it will actually result in about a $40 million cut in Purdue's budget over the next two years.

Where will those cuts come from?

"We'll be able to make certain decisions here, and we'll be talking about them before too very long, that cut across central administration in particular," said Daniels. "Things as simple as simply freezing certain budgets instead of letting them go up the way it was assumed they would."

Daniels said the university spends about $2 billion a year, and said about $1 billion is for the general fund budget. He said making up the $40 million for the tuition freeze can be done.

"This is what, a couple percent each year?" said Daniels. "I'm pretty sure we can do this if we set our minds to it."

Daniels said this is just the beginning of an ongoing endeavor to find ways to make higher education more affordable.

That's something Rodgers, and other students, appreciate.

"I think this is a good way of him showing us that he cares," said Rodgers.

The freeze leaves tuition at about $10,000 a year for in state tuition. Non-resident tuition and fees will freeze at about $29,000, and international students will have a frozen tuition of about $31,000.