Tuition will increase by $4 per credit hour in the fall, an increase of $48 extra per semester for a full-time student taking 12 credits, coming as part of the college’s proposed $123.6 million budget.

The college’s Board of Trustees approved the proposed budget for the fiscal year 2021, which must now be approved by Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman, and Gov. Larry Hogan, according to Vice President for learning resources management Melissa Beardmore. 

AACC has increased tuition each year since 2004, except for 2007 to 2009, recently increasing by $4 in 2019, $2 in 2018, and $3 in 2017. 

“We don’t want to … have three years with no increases, and then we need a $16 tuition rate increase,” Beardmore said. “That wouldn’t be fair [to students].”

Student Government Association President Mitchell Santos said the increase may be too much for some students.

“To me, it doesn’t affect me too, too much. But I know a lot of other students,” might be affected by the increase, Santos, a second-year creative writing student, said. “As a student, I’m not like through the roof about … the tuition increase but I can see why it’s necessary. … To make sure the school can offer [and] can continue offering a high-quality education, and all the resources that it does I can definitely see why we need it.”

Nick Hubley, a third-year engineering transfer student, said he didn’t mind the increase.

“I’m sure it adds up a lot for the college which would, I would assume help pay for a lot of stuff around the campus,” Hubley said.