Tennessee Board of Regents raises tuition $42

Last updated on July 9, 2021

The Tennessee Board of Regents, at its June meeting, has approved a tuition increase of $42 per semester at the state’s community colleges for students taking 15-hour course loads. Vol State‘s new tuition will be $4,374 for 15-hours per semester. The tuition increase is the first in two years.

The Board also approved Vol State’s request to eliminate its $25 per credit hour specialized course fee for Fire Science. 

TBR also approved fees and preliminary budgets for the 2021-22 academic year at the state’s community and technical colleges, updates to the systemwide strategic plan, and new training programs at the technical colleges.

The Board suspended campus-specific online course fees for the next academic year at the seven community colleges assessing them, saving students a total of $2.6 million and removing a financial barrier for students opting for online courses. The Board plans to review the fee again next year.

Tuition and fees have been unchanged since July 2019. Aside from last year’s stable rates, the increase is the smallest hike at the community colleges in more than 30 years. Many students are able to attend free of tuition and mandatory fees through the Tennessee Promise and Tennessee Reconnect programs and other federal and state financial aid. Tennessee Promise is for new high school graduates and Reconnect is for adults without a college degree or credential. More information on those and other programs is available here.

The Tennessee Board of Regents governs the College System of Tennessee, comprising 13 community colleges and 27 colleges of applied technology. The full agenda, board materials and archived recordings of today’s quarterly board meeting and Thursday’s committee meetings are posted on the TBR website

Combined tuition and mandatory fees at the community colleges for an academic year of two semesters (for students taking 15 credit hours per semester) will range from $4,594 to $4,678, an increase ranging from 1.83 to 2 percent and averaging 1.87 percent.