<p>Yale Raises Annual Cost 4.5%, Following Other Ivies
2007-03-26 16:56 (New York)</p>
<pre><code> (Adds financial aid in fifth paragraph.)
</code></pre>
<p>By Matthew Keenan
March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Yale University, the world's second-
wealthiest school, will raise the cost of undergraduate tuition,
fees and room and board 4.5 percent, almost twice the current
rate of inflation.
Total costs will increase to $45,000 for the next academic
year from $43,050, the New Haven, Connecticut, school said in a
statement today. The increase at Yale, which has an $18 billion
endowment, falls below last year's average gain of 5.7 percent
for private, four-year schools, said Tony Pals, spokesman for the
National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
<code>Like its peer institutions, its endowment also happens to
be way above the national average,'' said Pals, whose Washington-
based organization represents about 1,000 U.S. schools.</code>It does
have those sums to draw upon to help temper the increase in
tuition.''
Yale's increase is similar to that at Ivy League peers
including Harvard University, and outpaces the consumer price
index, which rose 2.4 percent for the 12 months through February.
The Bush administration and members of Congress have called for
colleges to do more to hold down costs.
Yale will spend about $62 million for undergraduate
financial aid next year, 3.5 percent more than the $59.9 million
in assistance granted this year, Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said.
The 2007-08 total doubles the school's expenditure in 2000.</p>
<pre><code> Ivy League Increases
Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, also raised its
</code></pre>
<p>tuition and fees 4.5 percent, to $45,620. Among the other Ivies,
Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, increased costs 5.1
percent to $45,971; Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island,
lifted fees 5 percent to $45,938; and the University of
Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, raised costs 4.9 percent to
$46,124.
In addition, Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire,
will charge students $45,483, a 4.9 percent boost, while New
Jersey's Princeton University will assess $43,980, up 4.2
percent.
Only Columbia University in New York, the highest-priced Ivy
League school in 2006-2007, hasn't announced next year's rates.
The Higher Education Price Index, compiled by the Commonfund
Institute in Wilton, Connecticut, showed that colleges' costs to
operate jumped 5 percent in the year ended June 2006 and might
rise 3.1 percent this year. The index monitors expenses such as
faculty and administrative salaries, health care and other
benefits, and utilities.</p>
<pre><code> National Average
The national average for tuition, fees and room and board at
</code></pre>
<p>private four-year colleges rose $1,624 to $30,367 for the current
academic year, according to the College Board, a New York-based
nonprofit organization that oversees the SAT college-entrance
exam. Pals, of the college and university association, said
student costs are likely to rise by a similar amount next year.
Sarah Lawrence College, a liberal arts school in Bronxville,
New York, will assess $50,810 in tuition and fees for 2007-2008.
George Washington University in Washington will charge $50,660
for the next academic year.
Yale's endowment trails only Harvard's $29.2 billion fund.
Yale also has the second-biggest endowment per student, about
$1.6 million, while Princeton has $1.9 million, according to the
New York-based Council for Aid to Education.
Income from the endowment has enabled Yale to waive parental
contributions for families earning less than $45,000 a year and
reduce payments for those making between $45,000 and $60,000.
About 5,300 undergraduate students attend Yale and 6,100 are
enrolled in its graduate programs.
The stated price ``doesn't tell the entire story about
affordability at Yale,'' Pals said. The school said 41 percent of
current students received need-based financial aid and that an
average scholarship award is $23,500.</p>
<p>--With reporting by James M. O'Neill in New York and Brian K.
Sullivan in Boston. Editors: Gienger (gfh).</p>