HARRISBURG (TNS) — Students attending Pennsylvania’s state universities will be spared a tuition increase for another year, making it four consecutive years their price has remained flat.

But the State System of Higher Education governing board’s unanimous decision on Thursday to hold the line on tuition comes with an asterisk.

The freeze heavily relies on the state legislature coming through with the $75 million increase the system and Gov. Tom Wolf have requested for the state university system for a total of $552 million.

Provided that happens, the in-state undergraduate rate remains at $7,716 for 2022-23 and the mandatory technology fee for those students, at $478 for the year.

“It’s not that we don’t need the money but it really has to do with our commitment to student affordability and our continued hope that we can renew our partnership with the state and the funding relationship,” system Chancellor Dan Greenstein said.

He said the system has cut $100 million annually out of its universities’ operating money to devote to student financial aid, which is up $30 million since 2019. Couple that with now four years of flat tuition, that adds up to $170 million a year in savings and efficiencies it has found.

“We cannot continue to make those cuts on ourselves and continue to do the high quality work that we’re doing and serve the students we need to serve in order for the state to sort of feed its workforce needs,” Greenstein said.

He called his recommendation to freeze tuition and the technology fee “an act of faith in our owners, the General Assembly. Faith, that we are not alone in this room in our desire to ensure that affordable pathways into and through post-secondary education remain in this commonwealth.”

At the meeting, the presidents were asked about the consequences of not receiving the state aid that is requested.

Slippery Rock University President William Behre said given the $4 million contractual obligation his institution faces next year, there is little doubt student financial aid the school provides to its low-income students would have to be cut and some of the student services outside its core academic mission would end.

“Our schools will not be what they are today and the opportunities will disappear,” Behre said.

System board members, in turn, backed the decision to freeze tuition. Lawmakers on the board expressed optimism that the requested state support will come through.

Board member David Maser spoke to the steps that system officials and presidents have taken in recent years to squeeze as much as it can out of the system in terms of efficiencies.

“What we’re asking for Is not what we need,” he said. “It’s less than we need by a strong factor but it is more than we have and it will enable us to continue to move forward.”

{In his appearances before legislative committees, Greenstein has stressed that the state universities, which have the most affordable four-year degree that a Pennsylvania school offers, is pricing itself out of the low- and middle-income student market that the system was created to serve.

He attributes the cost to attend a system university as a primary reason for this year’s 5,000-student decline in enrollment.

Along with requesting funding to operate the universities, the system board separately has requested the state provide $201 million in direct student aid, which state Deputy Secretary for Postsecondary and Higher Education Tanya Garcia said the administration would like to prioritize to those pursuing careers in education, health care and public service occupations.

The cost of attending a state university, once all the fees and room and board charges are added to tuition, averages around $23,000 for a year, Greenstein has said. That amounts to $6,500 more than the cost of attending a State University of New York school and is second or third highest in the nation among comparable public universities.

The system universities include Cheyney, East Stroudsburg, Indiana, Kutztown, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester as well as Pennsylvania Western University’s California, Clarion and Edinboro campuses, and Commonwealth University’s Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield campuses.