MANSFIELD, Conn. — UConn President Tom Katsouleas announced the university will pause its Connecticut Commitment program because of funding issues during a Board of Trustee's meeting Wednesday morning.
The program, which started this semester, offered free tuition up to four years for new lower-income Connecticut students.
Katsouleas said fundraising for the program has been difficult during the pandemic as the university also deals with budget shortfalls.
"The program will cost about $700,000 this year and as it stands today, it's cost is estimated to increase with each class to a total of about $5 million by year four, we have sufficient funds to cover year one. Raising the costs to cover four years was always an ambitious goal. While we did see an uptick in fundraising, we will not achieve our goal of raising enough to cover the cost of the program over the next four years," said Katsouleas.
Katsouleas said the university does have the cash needed to fund the first year of the first cohort of students who started this semester and the university will keep that commitment through their fourth year.
However, the program will not be offered next fall to a new cohort.
He says the university will continue its fundraising efforts for the program despite putting it on pause, and students in need will continue to receive robust financial aid.