Temple University will kick off a $100 million fundraising campaign in the fall specifically targeted at financial aid, as it continues a concerted effort to roll back the cost of education.

Famous Temple alum Bill Cosby has filmed several videos that the University will use to urge its 275,000 alumni and others to donate and help a new generation of students attend school at an affordable cost, reports Philly.com

It's the largest campaign specifically for financial aid ever undertaken by the 39,000-student university, whose main campus is in the heart of North Philadelphia.

The University also announced in June it would not raise tuition for 2012-13, a first since 1995, though it did hike room-and-board costs 3.9 percent. The tuition decision followed an announcement by the state that it would hold flat Temple's subsidy rather than institute a 30 percent cut as originally proposed.

Temple was the only one out of the four state-related universities - the others being University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State University, and Lincoln University - to freeze tuition. The others held their increases to 3 percent or less. The 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education also raised their tuition 3 percent.

Temple wants to become a rigorous participant in the growing national conversation to address the ever-increasing cost of higher education and the resulting, back-breaking debt incurred by students, said Patrick O'Connor, chairman of Temple's board of trustees. The pressure on students nationally to pay has become greater as states' support for education has waned.

Pennsylvania has one of the highest student debt rates in the nation for college, said Pauline Abernathy, vice president of the Institute for College Access and Success, which studies student debt.

Temple last week hired Neil D. Theobald, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Indiana University as its new president in part because of his financial acumen. When he takes over Jan. 1, philanthropy will be his no. 1 mission, he said last week in meetings with staff and students.

Theobald also said he hoped to capitalize on Temple's high-profile move into the Big East Conference.

Temple decided to freeze tuition in 1995 over concern that the school was becoming too expensive for the public. At that time, it cost $5,314 for Pennsylvania residents. Before that, the last time the University had held tuition steady was 21 years earlier.

After the recession hit a few years ago, more colleges began launching campaigns specifically for financial aid and scholarships. Now, Temple is the new addition. The University also has plans of increasing its student-debt counseling services.