LAS VEGAS, Nev. Every news account of the Nevada System of Higher Education’s tuition vote in January described the same number: a 12% increase over three years for UNLV and UNR students.
That figure is real, and it is also only half the story. UNLV’s own published registration fee schedule shows the per credit rate for Nevada resident undergraduates rising from $288.50 in 2025-26 to $367.25 in 2028-29, a 27.3% increase, more than double the widely reported figure, a calculation performed for this article directly from UNLV’s own posted numbers.
Two Increases, Stacked in the Same Three Years
The gap exists because the January vote was never the only increase scheduled for those years. Since 2019, NSHE has run what it calls the Predictable Pricing Program, which ties registration fee and non-resident tuition increases to the Higher Education Price Index, capped at 6% a year, and requires the system to publish rates four years in advance.
Under that policy alone, the 2026-27 rate had already been set using the 2022 HEPI of 5.2%, years before regents ever discussed the additional increase they approved in January.
The regents’ own briefing paper for that vote makes the stacking explicit. NSHE’s January 2026 board document describes the newly proposed 3%, 4% and 5% increases for 2026-27 through 2028-29 as being “in addition to” already scheduled HEPI increases of 5.2%, 4.0% and 3.4% for those same three years.
Regents voted 8-5 to approve the new layer on top, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s report on the vote, which also noted the board had postponed the same decision once already, at a Dec. 5 meeting, so regents could get more institution specific budget detail first.
Compounding both layers together, rather than adding the two headline percentages, a calculation performed for this article using the board’s own figures produces a three year multiplier of 1.2724, or a 27.24% increase, within a few tenths of a point of the 27.3% shown in UNLV’s own live fee table.
The small difference likely reflects rounding in the underlying HEPI figures cited in the board’s briefing paper versus the exact rates NSHE ultimately published.
| Academic year | UNLV resident registration fee, per credit | Change from prior year |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | $288.50 | Baseline year |
| 2026-27 | $312.75 | +8.41% |
| 2027-28 | $338.25 | +8.15% |
| 2028-29 | $367.25 | +8.57% |
For a Nevada resident carrying a minimum full time course load of 24 credits a year, that schedule takes the annual registration fee alone from $6,924 this year to $8,814 by 2028-29, an increase of $1,890, a calculation performed for this article from UNLV’s posted per credit rates. That figure covers registration fees only.
It does not include the separate technology, student services and other mandatory fees UNLV charges on top, which are not adjusted under the same HEPI formula and are not included in this calculation.
Why Regents Raised It
NSHE went into the January vote facing a $46.5 million annual budget shortfall, driven largely by faculty pay raises the system had already committed to, according to The Nevada Independent’s coverage ahead of the vote.
Administrators told regents the new revenue would support roughly 317 positions systemwide, including faculty, academic advisers and classified staff, and that without it, UNR alone could be forced to eliminate approximately 81 faculty positions, according to My News 4’s report on the meeting.
Community college students face a separate, smaller schedule: 9% over the same three years for lower division courses and 12% for upper division courses, the same 12% figure applied to UNLV and UNR.
The Vote Is Now the Center of a Regent Election
That January vote has become the defining issue in a contested race for the NSHE Board of Regents’ District 2 seat this November, according to Nevada Current’s Sept. 22 report. Incumbent Jennifer McGrath, an attorney appointed to the seat by Gov. Joe Lombardo in 2025 after former regent Lois Tarkanian’s 2024 death, voted for the increase.
She faces Patrick Villa, a mathematics professor at the College of Southern Nevada with 22 years in the classroom and a former Faculty Senate chair, who was not yet on the board when it passed but publicly opposed the increase, telling Nevada Current the process “was really rushed” and that regents “didn’t properly consider alternatives.”
McGrath advanced from June’s primary with about 49% of the vote in a three candidate field; Villa placed second with roughly 25%, according to the same report. Whoever wins in November will serve a two year term before the seat reverts to the system’s standard four year cycle.
The tuition increase itself is already locked in for 2026-27 regardless of the election’s outcome, since it was adopted by the full board in January, not by a single seat.
How Predictable Pricing Works
- Adopted in 2019 as a policy meant to let families plan ahead rather than face surprise increases.
- Tied to the Higher Education Price Index, a national measure of college cost inflation, capped at 6% in any single year.
- Published four years out. NSHE is required to post registration fee and non-resident tuition rates for at least four future academic years by June 1 each year.
- Runs independently of special votes. The formula updates on its own schedule regardless of whether regents separately vote to add another increase on top, which is what happened in January.
- Applies beyond the three years in the news. UNLV’s table already shows a further increase to $380.50 per credit in 2029-30, a smaller 3.6% step since the newly voted increase does not extend past 2028-29.
McGrath has not publicly disputed that the two increases stack, and the board’s own briefing paper does not hide it either. What has not previously been reported, based on a search of coverage from the January vote through this week, is a calculation combining the two schedules into the single number a Nevada resident student will actually see on a bill: 27.3% over three years, not 12%.
UNLV’s Nevada resident registration fee schedule for 2025-26 through 2029-30 ($288.50, $312.75, $338.25, $367.25 and $380.50 per credit hour) is drawn directly from UNLV’s own NSHE Predictable Pricing page. The Predictable Pricing Program’s 2019 adoption, its HEPI basis, its 6% annual cap and its four year advance publication requirement are drawn from NSHE’s Sept. 2025 Board of Regents briefing paper (BOR-11). The newly approved 3%, 4% and 5% increases for 2026-27 through 2028-29, the “in addition to” language describing them as layered on top of already scheduled HEPI increases of 5.2%, 4.0% and 3.4% for those same years, and the 9%/12% community college schedule are drawn from NSHE’s Jan. 2026 Board of Regents briefing paper (BOR-5f). The 8-5 vote count and the Dec. 5, 2025 postponement are drawn from the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s reporting. The $46.5 million shortfall figure is drawn from The Nevada Independent’s pre-vote coverage. The 317 systemwide positions and 81 potential UNR faculty eliminations are drawn from My News 4’s report on the vote. The regent race details, including McGrath’s appointment, Tarkanian’s 2024 death, Villa’s background and quotes, and the primary vote shares, are drawn from Nevada Current’s Sept. 22, 2026 report. The 27.24% and 27.3% compounded increase calculations, the per credit and per year dollar figures, the $1,890 annual increase estimate, and the comparison identifying that no prior coverage had combined the two increase schedules into a single figure are original calculations and findings for this article and do not appear in any single underlying source. A search for existing reporting combining NSHE’s newly voted increase with its separately scheduled Predictable Pricing increases did not turn up any prior article making this specific calculation as of publication.
