The Tufts Community Union Senate hosted a Tuition Transparency Town Hall on Tuesday to break down how the university allocates its budget amid rising tuition costs. The event featured several senior university leaders, including Provost and Senior Vice President Caroline Genco, Vice President for Finance and Treasurer ad interim Thomas Malone, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Bárbara Brizuela and Dean of Engineering Kyongbum Lee. Approximately 60 students attended.
“The goal of tonight is really to bring clarity and transparency to how tuition works at Tufts,” TCU President Dhruv Sampat, a senior, said. “We’d like to create a space that feels safe and open to talk about all your questions … and bridge the gap between the students and administration.”
Malone opened with a presentation on Tufts’ $1.32 billion operating budget, outlining the university’s revenue sources.
“Tuition is sometimes considered the primary funding source, but here at Tufts, it is just one component,” Malone said. “Net tuition makes up just about half of our revenue sources.”
He explained that approximately 18% of revenue comes from sponsored research, 12% from clinical and other activities and about 16% from gifts and endowment income. Last year, Tufts received over $240 million in sponsored research funding, with the federal government serving as its largest funder.
Genco acknowledged that Tufts lost $20 million in research grants between February and summer 2025 due to federal funding cuts but expressed confidence in future funding.
“We just got approval on a budget that was approved at an increased rate for federal funding for research,” Genco said. “We’re really confident that moving forward, we’re going to continue to see robust funding across all of our research portfolios.”
Malone shared a chart outlining how funds are allocated, noting that 32% of expenditures go toward instruction and 17% toward sponsored research.
“About a third of our costs are related to instruction,” Malone said, adding that instruction is supported primarily by tuition, as well as by endowment income, gifts and philanthropy.
The event then transitioned to a panel moderated by Sampat, who asked university leaders questions about Tufts’ finances, including tuition increases.
“One way to think about … tuition increases is that the rate at which some of our expenses have been growing is not the same [rate] at which … tuition has been growing,” Brizuela said.
Malone pointed to rising personnel costs as a major factor to tuition increases.
“To support our faculty and staff, there’s money set aside to provide raises to help keep up with the cost of living,” Malone said.
Lee added that the evolving nature of higher education has introduced new operational costs, particularly as universities expand offerings related to technology and artificial intelligence.
“I would include energy for, let’s say, computing and data storage,” Lee said. “Those are [costs] that would [not] have [been] anticipated 175 years ago.”
He noted that supporting AI and computing initiatives requires additional infrastructure and energy investment.
Malone added that the university is focused on improving efficiency to help control rising tuition costs.
“We do have a focus right now [on] understanding how we can be more efficient as a university to … hopefully [reverse] the cost increases that we’re seeing year over year,” Malone said.
Sampat also asked panelists about the Tufts Tuition Pact, which guarantees full tuition coverage for qualifying families earning under $150,000.
“It is a stretch for us, and it is a goal that we have,” Brizuela said. “We do a lot of fundraising [for financial aid], and we need to do more — not just to expand the number of families … we can bring to the Tufts community [who] fall … below $150,000, but also [to support] the middle-class families who may be just above [that threshold].”
While international students are not covered under the Tuition Pact, Brizuela said Tufts meets their full demonstrated financial need.
“We’re really proud that we’re one of few schools that do provide financial aid for international students,” Brizuela said. “So while they’re not covered under the Tuition Pact, we do meet full need for our admitted international students.”
Genco later noted a slight decrease in undergraduate international student enrollment and a larger decrease at the graduate level.
The panel also addressed Tufts’ endowment, which stands at approximately $3 billion. Malone said about 9% of the operating budget comes from the endowment — a lower percentage than many peer institutions.
Brizuela added that Tufts’ per-student endowment spending is relatively low, underscoring the university’s continued emphasis on fundraising.
“You can see that Tufts is below the national average and below our peers as well, which is one of the reasons that we [continue] fundraising,” Brizuela said.
Sampat said he hopes the event sets a precedent for future conversations between students and administrators.
“I think [this Town Hall] sets an important precedent to keep having these conversations, because there were so many things that people clearly didn’t know,” Sampat said. “I hope this is carried forward, and I hope we keep reviewing things with [the] administration [while] also … asking important questions.”
