Starting in the fall 2024 semester, undergraduate students at Our Lady of the Lake University can lock in the price of their tuition for four consecutive years.
The university will officially launch the program, called OLLU4U, Saturday during a preview day for potential future students by handing out padlocks for participants to lock into a chain.
All undergrads, including first-year students, current students and transfers, will be eligible for the tuition lock. In order to keep their tuition the same price, students will have to stay enrolled without taking a break.
OLLU President Abel Chávez said the goal of the tuition lock is to help families plan their finances, and to encourage students to keep up the momentum and earn degrees.
“Here in our state, there's about 2.5 million adults with some college and no degree. And that is also what we're trying to positively affect,” Chávez said. “We want 100% (of) each and every one of the students who steps foot on our campus to complete. And we know that sometimes the price of tuition might be a barrier for our students from completing.”
Chávez said students don’t have to be enrolled full time to qualify for OLLU4U, but if they want to complete their degree before the end of the four-year tuition lock, they most likely will have to attend full time.
According to the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard, the average annual cost to attend OLLU — with scholarships and grants — is just under $18,000. But Chavez says some students are able to pay much less than that.
“Any given student could easily lower the tuition down to nearly zero with Pell (grants), with our institutional scholarships and with external scholarships,” Chávez said.
OLLU is a private Catholic university on San Antonio’s West Side with about 1,200 students. Tuition currently is set at $30,804 a year for a full-time student.
