Tuition for Maryland’s colleges would be held to three percent during the coming four years if Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown is elected governor, the leading Black candidate in the June primary election pledged March 12.
Under what the Brown campaign is calling the Keeping College Affordable Plan, the tuition increase cap launched under Gov. Martin O’Malley and Brown in 2007 would be continued in a Brown administration. The 3.3 percent cap on annual tuition increases at the state’s public colleges and universities makes Maryland’s tuition growth rate the second lowest in the nation.
“As part of our campaign to build a better Maryland for more Marylanders, we make our children a promise: that if they work hard and do well in school, there’s nothing they can’t achieve,” Brown, who is campaigning to be the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nominee, said in a statement. “We’ve made great progress over the last seven years toward the goal of ensuring every Maryland student has access to an affordable, high-quality college education, but we can do better.”
The tuition cap pledge is the 11th policy proposal issued by Brown and running mate Ken Ulman, Howard County executive.
Brown said, “that’s why Ken Ulman and I will cap college tuition growth at no more than 3% annually over the next four years — so we can extend ladders of opportunity to every Marylander, regardless of background or means.”
Ulman said during the news conference, “Anthony Brown has led the way as Maryland has maintained the lowest tuition growth rate in the nation, including a four-year freeze in tuition cost hikes.”
The June 24 primary pits Brown and Ulman against five other sets of candidates for the party’s nominaton: Attorney General Doug Gansler and Del. Jolene Ivey, Ralph and Feda Jaffe, Del. Heather Mizeur and Delmon Coates, Charles U. Smith and Clarence Tucker and Cindy A. Walsh and Mary Elizbeth Wingate-Pennacchia.