No slowing of tuition cost increases in near future

One decade from now, could Tufts really be worth an annual $62,100 fee? If current trends continue as they have been for previous years, future bills will make today's pale in comparison.

While Tufts' reputation as a premier institution of higher education continues to grow, the school already has a solid distinction as one of the most expensive schools in the nation.

There is no indication that tuition growth will slow any time soon either. The University's price tag will increase by another 4.5 percent next year, according to Executive Administrative Dean Wayne Bouchard.

With an expected total cost of attendance of just under $40,000 next year, it comes as little surprise that since 2001 Tufts has consistently graced the country's "Most Expensive Colleges" lists, on par with five of the eight Ivy League institutions.

Next year's tuition increase follows a decade-old trend which has seen Tufts' tuition steadily increase between four and five percent each year.

Bouchard attributes the increase to the fact that 80 to 90 percent of Tufts' annual undergraduate budget is reliant on tuition inflow. With a modest university endowment of only $600 million, Tufts administration has no choice but to match tuition costs to increasing living costs such as energy, healthcare and competitive faculty salaries.

Those unavoidable increases are natural, and for a school like Tufts, the only option is to continue tuition increases to cover those costs.

"It's probably necessary to raise tuition," says economics professor George Norman. "Tufts is continually trying to strike a balance between costs and tuition, and obviously costs and inflation continue to rise."

Because a price tag as hefty as Tufts' may preclude many qualified but underprivileged students from attending, the school is dependent on financial aid to make up the difference.

Director of Financial Aid Patricia Reilly said 48 percent of Tufts students benefit from financial aid in one form or another. The school's neediest students are required to pay an annual tuition of around $1,500, and the aid program covers the rest of the bill.

Approximately $41.2 million dollars of the total $49 million Tufts spent on financial aid in 2003-04 was largely collected from student tuition. Using tuition money for financial aid is necessary to keep Tufts from becoming "a school of rich white kids," Bouchard said.

Despite the school's efforts to ease the tuition's burden from middle and lower class students, "I have no doubt that costs are deterring underprivileged kids from applying to or attending Tufts," Bouchard said.

Director of Admissions Lee Coffin said the demographic most likely to be hurt by Tufts' tuition would be the middle class. "Obviously, the wealthy don't need to worry too much about this tuition. And the very underprivileged [those whose families make $50,000 or less each year] enjoy large financial aid packages. Ultimately, the middle class students and their families need to make a decision," Coffin said.

He added that despite costs, Tufts has enjoyed its fourth consecutive record-breaking applicant pool increase.

"While of course $40,000 is a zone of expensiveness that would hurt many people, so many still see the value of a good education," Coffin said.

Coffin agreed with Bouchard that tuition may deter students from applying, but said the exact impact is difficult to measure.

"It's so hard to know how many people are truly deterred by tuition costs because they are largely an invisible group. Generally, people would pull out of the application process due to cost before even applying, so we have no real way of knowing how many people that includes," Coffin said.

Judging from the application statistics for the last four years, however, "the tuition increases and costs have certainly not been a detriment. A challenge, perhaps," Coffin said.

While the cost of a Tufts education has not stopped growing, Bouchard said that eventually the school will become less reliant on tuition as its principle budgetary pillar, possibly resulting in a slower annual tuition increase.

Bouchard said Capital Campaigns -- challenges set forth by the Tufts president to raise endowment funds -- paint a very promising financial future for Tufts.

President Bacow's last campaign was called "Tufts Tomorrow." It was launched in 1995 and ended in 2002, raising over $600 million for the school and what Bouchard called "the most pressing projects." These included building renovations and an increasingly high caliber of faculty.

Bouchard said that Bacow is slated to announce an even more ambitious campaign sometime in the next year with a goal of raising about $1 billion over the next decade.

If this goal is achieved, Bouchard said that "such substantial resources would allow us to, among other things, become need-blind." Being need-blind, or admitting students with no regard to financial status, is a privilege that some of the wealthiest schools in the nation already enjoy.

Harvard is the country's richest university with an endowment of about $19.3 billion in 2003. This year, Harvard announced that all families making less than around $45,000 would not need to pay for their children's Harvard education at all.

Although Harvard also continues to increase its tuition at a rate comparable to Tufts' -- a 5.15 percent increase was announced for the 2004-2005 school year -- such comprehensive financial aid is a model Tufts both ultimately seeks to emulate and currently competes with.

"Basically it's a resource issue," Bouchard said. "It's hard to compete against when we try to attract the nation's top students, but the important thing to remember is that we do."

"We're doing our utmost with what resources we have to compete with the best and wealthiest schools throughout the country, and I think it's fair to say that we're doing rather well," Bouchard said.