Tuition, H&D fees to increase for 2008-09 year
Loan threshold doubled as Rice responds to Harvard’s announcement of increased aid
On the heels of a landmark decision from Harvard University to lower tuition costs, Rice students can expect no change in planned hikes in both tuition and fees heading into next year. Tuition for incoming students will increase by 5.5 percent from $28,430 to $29,960 next year. Housing and dining costs will increase by $500 to $10,750.
However, in response to Harvard’s decision, Rice is also doubling its no-loan threshold so that students from families with annual incomes of $60,000 or less will not be required to take out loans as part of their financial aid, Vice President for Finance Kathy Collins said.
The tuition amount — called the sticker price, because it does not take into account individual financial aid a student may receive — is reached when Collins and the budget office discuss a possible range for tuition and look at tuitions of peer institutions, which include the Ivy League schools, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Emory and Brandeis. After the budget office met with President David Leebron and the vice provost, the Board of Trustees approved the tuition increase.
Collins said Rice has maintained a tuition amount considerably below those of peer institutions and that the tuition is increasing at a lesser rate than in the past.
“The 5.5 [percent] increase [in tuition] after years of a much higher increase is a combination of Rice being sensitive to the environment with pressures from the government and press, and people concerned about the growth in tuition,” Collins said.
Harvard University announced its Middle to Upper-Middle Class Income Initiative in December, which will ask families with annual incomes between $120,000 to $180,000 to spend 10 percent of their incomes on tuition, compared what it otherwise would cost from Harvard’s full tuition amount of $31,456. This initiative will not require students to take out loans to cover tuition and will not consider home equity when computing a student’s financial aid, which will reduce the average affected student’s tuition by $4,000. The announcement follows the congressional debates about Harvard being unaffordable even for upper middle-class families. Monday, Yale announced plans to follow in similar suit.
Harvard leads the nation in university endowment, with nearly $30 billion. Rice’s endowment for 2007 was $4.66 billion.
Vice President for Enrollment Chris Munoz said he does not expect Rice to offer a similar tuition break.
“I don’t think Rice in the near future would be able to match Harvard,” Munoz said. “Our endowment is really very small compared to Harvard. It’s highly unlikely that we would ever be in the financial position to do something like that.”
Munoz said the no-loan threshold will give students from low-income families the opportunity to attend Rice without incurring massive debt.
“It’s something we’re doing responsibly and it’s our commitment to try to ensure that students from lower incomes are not excluded from Rice just because of an inability to meet all our costs,” Munoz said.
Martel College sophomore Neil Parikh said Harvard’s new initiative may lead students who might otherwise choose to attend Rice to pick Harvard after weighing the comparative costs of both schools.
“One of the things that stands out for Rice is that it’s a great school and lots of people come because the tuition is significantly cheaper per year,” Parikh said. “The thing is, if you’re from a middle class family and your family makes around $120,000 and you have siblings, obviously $30,000 [for tuition] is still a lot of money compared to Harvard’s [tuition]. This initiative by Harvard might take away students who might have gone to Rice.”
Lovett College sophomore Chelsea Smith said she does not feel that Rice is offering a generous amount of financial aid. Her financial aid was cut from last year.
“I feel like they talk a lot about how financial aid has given a lot to so many people, but I don’t see that in my experience,” Smith said.
Baker College sophomore Matthew Taylor said cost was an important consideration in choosing between Rice and other elite schools. He said Harvard’s new initiative is likely to decrease Rice’s applicant pool.
“Paying more for school is always going to suck, anyway you look at it, but I guess you’re paying for an education,” Taylor said. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on. They’ve got money there that they’re not giving us, but this is a business, unfortunately. So, everyone’s making money, except me.”
Munoz said the amount of financial aid offered next year will increase, but could not speculate how much it would increase. He said the effect of Harvard’s policy and the tuition hike on applicant pool size is impossible to tell at this point.
“I think that definitely we don’t know with a great level of precision what’s going to happen, but certainly being able to say to families that fall below $50,000 that they will not incur any debt is going to be attractive,” Munoz said.
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