For Jumbos who have waited eagerly to see Tufts finally climb to the top of the college rankings, the day has finally come — but this is probably not exactly what they had in mind.
With a price tag of $51,088 for this academic year, Tufts is the most expensive school in Massachusetts, according to a report released last week by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Tufts this year joined the “$50,000 club,” the group of schools with attendance costs that exceed $50,000.
2009 was the year when this once-exclusive “club” swung its doors wide open: 58 schools now charge over $50,000, compared to just five last year. A total of nine institutions in Massachusetts made this year’s list.
Tufts is the nation’s 20th most-expensive institution, according to the Chronicle report.
Scott Carlson, a senior reporter for the Chronicle, told the Daily that $50,000 was just another step in the upward trend of college costs.
“The $50,000 mark is an artificial mark because everything is going up in price all the time,” Carlson told the Daily. “So naturally … a lot more colleges will become this expensive.”
Tufts’ director of public relations, Kim Thurler, said that while Tufts’ fees may be the highest in Massachusetts, they do not stick out notably among peer institutions.
“Tufts’ costs are generally in line with other private universities and colleges” such as Boston College, Washington University in St. Louis and Georgetown, Wesleyan and Cornell Universities,” Thurler said in an e-mail. “[T]hese cost differences are often not very large.”
Direct price comparisons between schools, she added, are often not pertinent, as institutions include slightly different criteria in their figures.
University President Lawrence Bacow told the Daily in a recent interview that Tufts is expensive for three reasons: small classes, a relatively small endowment and the fact that the university has an engineering school.
The real question about cost increases, Carlson said, is when they will end — but he does not foresee finding the answer soon.
“How high will it go?” Carlson said. “Will it cap at 60,000? Eighty thousand? A hundred? At what point will families — wealthy families more importantly — say, ‘That is too much to send my son or daughter to that type of college?’ That is the $50,000 question.”
Bacow declined to offer an answer to this question, but he said that the high price tag is there for a reason.
“We know how to make a Tufts education less expensive,” Bacow said. “It’s pretty simple: bigger classes, less student-faculty contact, less hands-on learning, less support for student life, less support for Student Services, less support for Career Services.”
Approximately 40 percent of Tufts undergraduates receive financial aid grants, with about another 10 percent receiving some other form of aid but not grants, according to Thurler. The average grant is $27,000, she said.
The total costs of attending Tufts rose by 3.5 percent this year, the lowest rate of increase in 45 years, according to administrators. Costs had risen 5.3 percent the previous year.
“While we would have liked to have frozen-tuition, we were unable to do so and still balance our budget in this economic environment,” Thurler said.
Carlson said this low movement was typical of the times.
“Already this year, colleges had, on average, the lowest increase in tuition based on percentage than they had any other year [on record],” he said. “That’s because they were worried that students would balk at paying more because of the recession.”
Tuition has long risen faster than inflation or the price of other products, a factor driving high education costs at schools across the country.
“I don’t believe they are pushing up tuition because it’s fun but because it’s necessary,” Carlson said.
He also pointed to “a growth of opulence of colleges.”
“A lot of colleges — Tufts included — have built nice new facilities for students to live in, so that adds to the price of room and board,” he said.
Other factors contributing to the rising cost of higher education include rising faculty and staff salaries, physical infrastructure and intangibles such as reputation and value, according to Carlson.
A large correlation between price, selectivity and college rankings exists, he added.
“Supply and demand plays into the price as much as anything else,” he said.
Experts have questioned whether rising costs at expensive schools will alienate potential students.
Leah McIntosh, the executive administrative dean for the School of Arts and Sciences, does not believe this will happen at Tufts.
“We work hard to keep costs as affordable as possible while also trying to realistically reflect our own cost pressures,” McIntosh said in an e-mail, adding that Tufts’ costs remain in line with the school’s sister institutions. “[S]o, while we most certainly want to control costs, we are not worried about pricing ourselves out of the market.”
As far as how the recession has affected tuition at Tufts and across the country, Carlson said that the economy is always a factor.
In a message to the community in March, Bacow outlined five major sources of revenue: tuition and fees, endowment income, income from dental and veterinary clinics, gifts for current use and research revenue. He said all but the last source were expected to decline because of the recession.
Carlson said consumers would have to vote with their feet in order to put a cap on tuition increases.
“If we get to a point where people look at the price of college and say I can’t pay this, if these most expensive colleges see their enrollment melt, then that might be an indication we’re reaching a price that is not sustainable,” he said.
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Alexandra Bogus contributed reporting to this article.
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