Tuition and Fees Will Rise to $14,100; Increase of 7.2% Lowest in a Decade

Undergraduate tuition and room and board fees will rise 7.2 percent next year to $14,000--the lowest percentage increase in 11 years--University officials said yesterday.

The $950 increase over this year's figure of $13,150 roughly equals increases at other Ivy League schools.

The budget for financial and will also increase by at least the same percentage, meaning that Harvard will continue its policy of aid blind admissions. The governing Corporation approved both raises at a meeting yesterday.

The national inflation rate was the major contributor to the lowered increase in College costs officials said. But tuition will still jump faster than inflation, which rose less than 4 percent last year.

Officials attributed this discrepancy to expected salary and benefit raises of 7 percent, costs from financing debt on funds borrowed for the ongoing House renovations, and slower than expected payments on pledges by donors to Harvard's current $350 million fundraising campaign.

Cash flow to the Faculty from the Campaign is going a lot more slowly than we expected. Financial Vice President Thomas O'Brien said, and we're also still digesting the inflation of a few years ago."

In addition, the Faculty has borrowed $ 30 million so far for the House renovations project, and it will require another $ 20 million in the next two years to finish the job. The cost of paying off that debt has contributed significantly to tuition increases, officials said.

The final decision on tuition, though, came almost a month and a half late. The Corporation ordinarily approves a figure in early February, but the shortcoming in Campaign generated funds forced the faculty to rethink the budget.

Associate Dean Melissa D Gerrity said the Faculty had expected the capital drive to attract $84 million by this year in donations for use as endowment money to provide interest income.

But although pledges to the $ 350 million campaign have come readily, only about $75 million of what the Faculty expected will be paid off by June 30. The revised budget is due April 2, and the Faculty may have to trim services or borrow from the central administration to meet all of its expenses.

Sharp Inflation

The sharp inflation of the late 1970's and early 1980's pushed up total fees by more than 12 percent for each of three consecutive years, 1980 to 1983, although last year's tuition increase was only 8.7 percent, owing to the let-up in inflation.

The tuition figure for next year is almost exactly double that of 1977-78.

Number One

Harvard's costs for undergraduates will rank as the highest in the Ivies, coming in just over Dartmouth's $14,050 and Yale's $13,950. However, MIT will cost $14,400, officials said.

The increases at other schools compare similarly to Harvard Brown tuition will jump 6.5 percent; Penn and Yale, about 7 percent, Cornell 8 percent and Dartmouth 9 percent.