The Northern Michigan University Board of Trustees set tuition and fees for the 2021-22 academic year on Monday, increasing tuition $252 per semester for resident undergrads, or 4.2%.

However, it recognized the fiscal challenges students and their families face because of the COVID-19 pandemic through approval of a grant program that will use federal stimulus money to lower students’ overall costs.

It also approved grants starting at $750 that will be funded by the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund for full-time students. The grants effectively lower most full-time resident students’ tuition and fees charges from a year ago by a minimum of $123 per semester.

NMU President Fritz Erickson acknowledged that the university has navigated the pandemic well, largely in part due to the students. So, to reflect that effort, campus leaders wanted the tuition and fee recommendations brought to the NMU Board of Trustees to recognize how the students have handled COVID-19 over the past 16 months in a meaningful way.

Lower students’ overall costs certainly will be appreciated.

However, with the state of Michigan’s “disinvestment,” as Erickson put it, in higher education over recent years, keeping tuition costs low could be a challenge.

This challenge faces not only NMU but its 14 sister universities in the state.

Institutes of higher learning can appeal to state officials to increase the investment, but it’s up to those officials to understand what colleges and universities face.

The COVID-19 pandemic — which, of course, is not over — has produced a strange time for people, and NMU is no exception. Students have had to undergo different ways of learning and practice safety protocols that students in previous years did not.

Although the grants will help students this academic year, what will be the case next year? Will the pandemic linger, or will things move back to normal?

Whatever the case, staying academically competitive while keeping tuition affordable for students is an immense task.

We hope the state of Michigan can understand what NMU and other universities are facing and provide an adequate investment in the coming years.

— The Mining Journal, Marquette