Tackling Nontuition Barriers to Affordability

As college affordability continues to challenge students nationwide, rising costs for housing, food and other basic needs are increasingly influencing whether students enroll and ultimately complete their degrees. In response, Coppin State University is reducing nontuition expenses for students who live on campus.

Beginning this fall, the public historically Black university in Baltimore will lower meal plan costs by 12 percent through a newly negotiated food service agreement. The university will also keep mandatory student fees flat, part of a broader effort to reduce financial barriers, limit student debt and support degree completion.

The changes come as institutions nationwide grapple with how to address the growing role that nontuition expenses play in student success. While tuition often dominates conversations about college affordability, food, housing and transportation costs can also impact students’ ability to remain enrolled.

Coppin President Anthony Jenkins said the cost reduction reflects the institution’s commitment to boosting affordability through strategic financial management and operational efficiencies. He added that rising food costs and growing concerns about basic needs insecurity among college students helped inform the university’s decision.

“We started looking at where else could we help students save, and where can we help families save,” Jenkins said. “Right now we’re in an environment where everything is going up—the cost of gas, the cost of energy, the cost of food.”

Rather than continuing to increase room and board costs each year, university leaders wanted to identify ways to ease financial pressures on students, he said.

“With what we were seeing around food insecurity and the rising cost of all of these external factors, we wanted to have an impact on one of the biggest expenses for college students, and that’s their meal plan,” Jenkins said.

Affordability in action: Following the new food service agreement, Coppin’s annual board cost will be roughly $4,875, less than that of every other four-year institution in Maryland. By comparison, annual board costs at other public universities are $6,290 at Towson University, $6,564 at Bowie State University and $6,820 at the University of Maryland, College Park.

“What we’re trying to do is reduce the barriers that affect our students’ ability to focus on why they’re here,” Jenkins said. “That’s academics, building lifelong friendships and developing into the scholars we want them to become.”

Jenkins said colleges can play a greater role in helping students overcome financial obstacles that threaten their ability to stay enrolled and complete their degrees.

“Institutions can be more intentional about how they help students—and I’m not saying carry them through the process,” he said. “But if you have a student who needs $1,500 or $2,500 to earn their degree, I think we as universities have to find some way to help them bridge that financial gap.”

Jenkins said the board-plan reduction is part of a larger affordability strategy aimed not only at lowering students’ overall cost of attendance but also supporting retention and degree completion.

One example is Summer SOAR, a program that allows students who complete 30 credit hours during the academic year to earn up to six credit hours of summer classes at no cost. It’s designed to help students stay on track for graduation while reducing the overall cost of earning a degree.

“The No. 1 factor that impacts a student’s retention and progression to graduation is time,” Jenkins said. “The longer it takes for a student to get from start to finish, the more life gets in the way and they have to stop out.”

The university also operates Expand Eagle Nation, a targeted tuition plan that offers in-state tuition rates to students from states with two or fewer HBCUs. Jenkins said the initiative expands access for students who may have limited opportunities to attend an HBCU in their home state.

“I started looking at financial aid data and I noticed that in-state students and out-of-state students were running out of financial aid around their junior year,” Jenkins said. “The goal was to lower the cost of attendance for out-of-state students and help more of them get over the finish line.”

Reducing financial barriers: Coppin’s affordability efforts coincide with a booming application season at the university, which reported a record 23,000 undergraduate applications in the most recent cycle.

Jenkins said retention now stands at 75 percent, up from about 56 percent when he started the job in 2020. The male retention rate is 77 percent, which he noted is both the highest in university history and above the national average of about 56 percent for Black male students.

Looking ahead, Jenkins said the university will evaluate the impact of the new board-plan reduction using enrollment and full-time-equivalent trends, alongside retention and persistence data. The affordability initiatives, he added, are grounded in the belief that reducing financial barriers is central to access and opportunity.

“We believe in affordability because we connect that to access and opportunity,” Jenkins said. “We still know it’s the greatest equalizer and the greatest catalyst of the upper middle class.”

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