Governor Jay Nixon announced today that community colleges will not raise their tuition for the coming academic year. Community colleges have agreed to freeze their tuitions in exchange for a five-percent budget cut.

"For the second year in a row, Missouri students at our state's twelve community colleges won't see an increase in their tuition or academic fees at all, period, zero."

Nixon also announced a tuition freeze earlier this week for four-year universities. He says the tuition freeze puts Missouri in stark contrast with other schools around the country that are facing tuition increases. He says community college education is vital to the state during difficult economic times, so it needs to be affordable.

"Especially now, tuition increases I think would be counter to what we need to do in the future of our economy."

The governor will present the budget along with the tuition agreement to the Missouri state legislature for approval in January. He says he expects the legislature to be supportive of his plan. But some politicians are calling Nixon's decision premature, saying the governor will have to make deeper cuts in other areas of the budget since he's essentially tying his hands concerning education funding. © Copyright 2012, KBIA