Tuition to increase by five percent

Tufts undergraduates will pay 4.9 more for their education next year when the university increases the amount it charges for tuition, room, board and mandatory fees to $38,270.

The $1,805 increase, which has been approved by the Board of Trustees, follows a pattern of similar annual growth over the last decade and safeguards Tufts' distinction as one of the most expensive colleges in the country.

The increase brings the total cost of a Tufts education to just over $40,000, according to university estimates. This year, the total cost of an education was estimated to be $38,400 -- a figure that accounts for the cost of books, supplies and miscellaneous expenses.

Since the 2001-2002 school year, Tufts has been the most expensive school among a group of 21 "competing institutions" (as determined by the administration) that includes five of the eight members of the Ivy League and several liberal arts colleges in the Northeast. Although Tufts' tuition was near the median for the group of schools, its room, board and other fees were the highest.

In order to balance the strain of paying for a Tufts education, the financial aid budget will be enlarged by 12.8 percent, bringing the total amount available for graduate and undergraduate aid to $40.48 million. Currently, 45 percent of undergraduates receive financial assistance from the University.

The yearly budget decisions originate in the Budget and Priorities committee, composed of students and faculty who "understand trade-offs so they can make informed recommendations," said Executive Administrative Dean Wayne Bouchard.

Physics professor and committee member Robert Guertin explained that "while no one wants an increase in tuition and fees of any magnitude, it was needed." According to Guertin, there was considerable input from undergraduate and graduate students in the committee's deliberations.

The committee's recommendations are reviewed by the Deans of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering, who submit a budget proposal to the Board of Trustees. Trustees then approve the budget.

Bouchard said that the University was aware of the pressure tuition creates, but said that Tufts "is a very tuition-dependent school." In contrast to comparable institutions with much larger endowments and other significant sources of income, he said tuition income comprises an overwhelming proportion -- 86 percent -- of Tufts annual $252 million budget. Raising tuition allows Tufts to "support the infrastructure and maintain the kind of institution that attracts the best and the brightest students and faculty," Bouchard explained.

Although Bouchard said that President Larry Bacow's efforts to grow the endowment from $650 million should prove advantageous to students in the future, he said that a bigger endowment would unlikely lead to lower tuition. After all, richer schools, despite their resources, have not spared their students significant increases either.

Last week, Harvard announced it would raise tuition, room, board and fees by 5.5 percent to $37,928, the biggest increase in a decade, according to The New York Times. Officials attributed the increase to the weak economy, higher expenses, and an unwillingness to cut services. But with an $18 billion endowment, Harvard's reasoning has been strongly criticized. The university has also been criticized for wasting money because its vast resources may not have forced it to be cost efficient.

The cost of attending other Ivy League schools will rise by similar rates next year. At Dartmouth will, total fees will increase by 4.9 percent and at the University of Pennsylvania they will rise by 4.8 percent.

Last year, the average cost of instruction, housing, and board at four-year private colleges rose 5.3 percent and at public universities those costs rose seven percent, according to US News and World Report.

Raising tuition at universities is so routine, Bouchard said, that "no one ever proposes no-tuition increase."

But Brad Farnsworth, an administrative vice president at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT explained that his school was able to avoid raising tuition last year by "[deciding] to control our costs and be more efficient." BYU is one of the very few schools that did not increase its tuition last year.

He conceded, however, that better planning was not adequate for balancing the budget and money had to be appropriated from other sources.

Although tuition is increasing for undergraduates, not all of Tufts schools are becoming significantly more expensive. Tufts' medical school announced this year that it would freeze tuition and fees, which currently amount to $40,094. Administrators are currently examining means to stabilize the ballooning costs of attending the school, which is the most expensive medical school in the country.

Universities increase their tuition rate beyond the inflation rate -- which was 1.5 percent last year -- because of the types of expenses they incur, according to Bouchard. "People might say that inflation is only three percent," he said, "but a lot of the expense categories for universities are growing at rates much greater than three percent."