Undergraduate tuition will increase to $47,650 next year—bringing the total cost of attendance to $63,273, the highest in the University's history and a 3.8 percent increase from this year.
The tuition increase was approved by the Board of Trustees, which convened this weekend at the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club. Increases were approved for each of Duke's ten schools, ranging from a 3.3 percent hike for the School of Medicine to a 6 percent increase for the Pratt School of Engineering's graduate programs.
"We always have to try to strike a balance between affordability and making the investments to create the high quality experience that people come here for," President Richard Brodhead said. "This was the balance point between a desire to keep investing for the benefit of students and a desire to control the costs."
Undergraduate tuition will increase by 4 percent from its current price of $45,800. The increase is consistent with the University's recent tuition growth, which has hovered around 4 percent for the last four years.
"We've obviously mitigated the increase in recent years," Brodhead said, noting that the increases in recent years have not been as significant as those in the past.
Tuition increases in the first decade of the 2000s ranged from 4 percent to 5.5 percent. From 2002 to 2012, the average increase was 4.46 percent.
As tuition has increased, so has financial aid, Brodhead noted. Estimates for next year's financial aid costs will not be finalized until later in 2015, but Duke will spend $132.2 million on financial aid in 2014-15—a figure which has increased by 32 percent in the last five years.
Half of Duke students receive some form of financial assistance, with more than 40 percent receiving need-based financial aid. Grants, loans and work-study opportunities are all included in need-based aid.
The Board has discussed the possibility of eliminating loans from Duke's financial aid packages, as some peer schools have done, but a decision is not on the horizon.
"We’ve had this under study, but we don’t yet have a proposal nor has there been any decision," Brodhead said of eliminating loans.
This year's tuition increase is comparable with that of peer schools—including Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania, both of which announced a 3.9 increase last week.
In other business:
The board discussed financing plans for a number of construction projects— including the Scott Family Pavilion, which will connect various Duke athletic facilities; the upcoming renovation to Cameron Indoor Stadium, which will add a new lobby to the iconic arena; the new Student Health and Wellness Center, which is set to break ground this Spring; and the Edens Quadrangle renovation, which will take place this summer.
Also discussed was strategic planning. In September, Provost Sally Kornbluth declared this academic year a time of "pre-planning" for faculty, administrators and students to identify possible areas of focus and an organizational structure for the University's next strategic plan.
Brodhead presented a history of strategic planning to the Trustees this weekend.
"You have to stop and you look forward, and you say—all right, the next stage of the journey. How much of that should be continuation of current projects, how much of it will be absolutely new things?" Brodhead said. "it’s like trying to solve a problem in about twenty dimensions simultaneously."
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