A Tenable Increase

The Harvard administration announced last Thursday that the total cost of attendance for the College will increase next year by $2,200. The 3.9 percent increase, which is the highest in seven years, will bring the total cost of a Harvard education to $58,607 for the 2014-2015 academic year. As less than half of the student body pays entirely out of pocket, this change is expected to affect a minority of the student body.

Although an added pressure for those not on financial aid, hopefully the tuition increase will correlate with an increase in aid money awarded to college students. Last year, Harvard increased its tuition rate by 3.5 percent, and this hike allowed for a $10 million increase in the financial aid budget, leaving the total at an all-time high of $182 million. Similarly, the upper limit for families awarded free tuition has increased in the past several years from $40,000 to $65,000, as tuition rose each year. The small price hike seems like a small sum to pay for a better financial aid program that will allow more students of diverse backgrounds to afford Harvard.

As an isolated instance, the increase in tuition will likely have a minimal effect on Harvard. While the price hike will certainly put pressure on some members of the college community, Harvard’s endowment is significantly large enough to support an increase in the number of students on financial aid, should the higher price tag force more families to consider that option. Although tuition increases are a principal means of funding the financial aid program, alumni donations—such as this past year’s record $125 million gift—play a significant part.

Although people often think of the Ivy League colleges when they think of tuition increases, public universities have also been increasing their tuitions in the past several years. In 2011, the increases by percentage in public schools were nearly double that of private schools.

Given that SAT scores and college enrolment is already so strongly linked with a family’s income, the long-term effect of this trend is highly problematic for students in the lower- and middle-income brackets. It’s great for the students from low-income families who are lucky enough to get into the need-blind (and highly selective) schools. But for many lower income students, who don’t consider applying to schools like Harvard, or aren’t able to provide the necessary SAT scores, the future is more bleak. The long-term consequences of this trend will ultimately fall on low-income students, who lack the wealth to pay for an SAT tutor or better primary education, and therefore cannot be accepted into elite institutions that offer the most generous financial aid packages.

Given that the greatest percent increases are coming from state schools, we hope that in certain cases the government will step in to increase education budgets. Politicians from Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren have publicly condemned what they see as the milking of college students for cash, and Warren has actively demanded greater loan forgiveness for college students. Continuing in this vein, it would be encouraging to see greater funding allocated to public universities.