Tuition Increases At Slower Rate

Tuition increased 6 percent for private universities and 10.5 percent for public universities since last year, according to a report released by the College Board on Monday.

These increases mark a slight decline from the previous year’s record high of a 13 percent tuition hike at public universities. Tuition has risen steadily in the past few years at colleges and universities nationwide.

Tuition for Harvard College has followed this trend, with a 5.5 percent rise for the 2003-2004 school year and 5.1 percent for this year.

These figures exceed the current inflation rate of about 2.5 percent.

While tuition may be on the rise, financial aid programs have largely kept pace with costs, according to the report.

The combination of grants and federal tax credits has kept students from bearing the brunt of tuition increases, with those attending private colleges only paying $1,000 more than 10 years earlier, according to the New York Times.

More financial aid programs emphasize loans over grants, the report found. Grants today amount to less than half of the total sum of loans offered within the average financial aid package. This reverses the trend of the ’90s when grants comprised roughly the same percentage of financial aid as loans did.

Merit aid has replaced need-based aid as colleges and universities have encountered a larger pool of those meeting the requirements for financial aid with the economy slumping. As a result, wealthier students—because they often attend richer schools—are receiving more aid than lower-income students, the report stated.

Sandy Baum, who helped analyze the results for the College Board, attributed the rising education fees and change in financial aid trends to higher costs of health care for employees, a slow economy, new technology and for some schools, shrinking endowments.

Yet, Harvard is in many ways an exception to the main thrusts of the study in that while tuition here has increased, financial aid has also risen, thanks to the largest endowment in the nation at $22.6 billion. “Endowments are shrinking and loans are increasing everywhere else but not at a few schools like Harvard, Yale and Princeton,” Baum said.

Over the past five or six years Harvard’s scholarship budget has increased from roughly $50 million to around $80 million according to Director of Financial Aid Sally C. Donahue. The growing endowment, which contributes to roughly 75 percent of the total financial aid budget, has enabled this increase.

Regarding the causes for the tuition hike, Donahue, like Baum, cited the rising cost of health care for employees as a main factor.

Harvard generated attention in February when University President Lawrence H. Summers announced a new financial aid initiative allowing students whose families make under $40,000 to attend without any parental financial contribution.

“We are deeply concerned with the trend in American higher education, which is partly why President Summers put forth the initiative,” Donahue said.

Sticker shock at the cost of a Harvard education—$39,880 this year including room and board—can be a problem, but Donahue said Harvard is trying to prevent price from limiting the applicant pool.

“With our newest initiative the message we are trying to send is that the most talented students should apply not just here but to college in general regardless of income,” she said.