After several years of cautious tuition increases, the Board of Trustees approved a tuition hike Friday that will set the price tag for next year’s Duke undergraduate education above $40,000 for the first time. Officials said the raise, which is slightly higher than in years past, is in line with Duke’s peer institutions.
The total cost for undergraduates—including tuition, room and board—will be $41,239, up 5.1 percent from this year. Financial aid, which has been one of President Richard Brodhead’s priorities since he first took office will increase 7.7 percent, totaling $55 million.
The Board, which serves as the ultimate governing body of the University, also approved increases in tuition for the graduate and professional schools. The largest increase is in the Graduate School, where students’ tuition will rise 7.1 percent, while students in the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences will only see a hike of 4.3 percent.
In most doctoral programs, University fellowships substantially offset the cost to students, but in master’s programs and professional schools, students bear the brunt of the cost. Brodhead said increasing the amount of aid available to students at all levels of the University would continue to top his administration’s agenda.
“When the president makes this such a visible priority, as I have in every public utterance I’ve made, you might expect something to follow from that,” Brodhead said. “It’s not something you’re going to go out and raise the money and be done for it, the effort to make undergraduate education affordable will be an eternal struggle.”
More than 40 percent of Duke undergraduates receive financial aid of some sort, with the average package from the University totaling more than $21,000 per student. The University has already begun to re-evaluate its financial aid program and will implement a number of reforms next year. The University will waive the summer earnings requirement for students who take unpaid internships, eliminate a mandatory annual increase in family contribution and expand transfer students’ aid eligibility.
The Board also approved plans for construction of the West Campus student plaza, a 40,000-square-foot outdoor space that will replace the Bryan Center walkway. Construction is now set to begin in May, and officials project the plaza will be complete by Fall 2006.
Plans for the plaza, which was originally slated to break ground last summer, were put on hold after administrators determined last year that neither the funding nor the planning were sufficiently in place.
“The Trustees think the design has evolved in ways that are advantageous,” Brodhead said. “It was worth taking the trouble to try and make it come out right. We still want to keep our eye on this thing as we build it.”
Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs and the point person on the project, said he received valuable feedback from the Board about the future development of the plaza. The project now bears a $10 million price tag, with about half of the funding secured.
“We haven’t received lots of checks, but we’re up to two,” Moneta said, adding that Bill and Melinda Gates also gave $5 million in 2002 for student life projects. Fundraising will likely continue “well into the construction of the plaza,” he said.
The Trustees also approved the construction of a chilled water plant near Circuit and LaSalle drives to provide air conditioning for several campus buildings.
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