Administration Announces Tuition Increase for Next Term

By Duane Paul Murphy

The Board of Trustees at the Catholic University of America announced on Tuesday a 3.8% increase in tuition and student fees for the 2016/2017 academic year. This announcement comes in the wake of the administration’s future or proposed plans to expand and renovate the school’s infrastructure as well as maintain and enhance other operations such as classroom modernization.

“For most programs tuition will be $41,800 and our standard room and board rate will be $13,464,” wrote the university’s president John Garvey. “Our planning for the next year must balance the increased operating costs that we face, our institutional objectives, and our commitment to provide the best possible Catholic University experience for our students.”

Concerns about the status of the school’s budget have come into question in the wake of the announcement.
“The University takes great care to steward its assets responsibly so to limit financial impact on students and families,” said Elise Italiano, Executive Director of University Communications. “The University’s Fiscal Year ’16 budget is balanced and will not end in a deficit, and the Fiscal Year ’17 budget will keep the University on solid financial footing.”

“For the past ten years, the Board of Trustees has approved tuition increases in order to address unique campus needs, which arise from year to year. While the commitment of an engaged donor community adds substantially to the quality of a student’s experience at the University, many diverse factors determine tuition prices, including operational costs” said Italiano when asked about previous tuition increases.
Many students on campus have voiced their own concerns over the new tuition increase. Some are worried about the administration’s transparency with the raise.

“We live in an unprecedented time of skyrocketing costs, and young people are disproportionately affected. In addition to commonsense measures like paying student workers a fair wage,” said Stephan Morris, a junior politics major. “I believe the administration should work with student leaders to give students semester reports on where and how their tuition dollars are being spent.”

Some students on the campus believe the recent increase is both a necessary benefit to operate the school and a hindrance on the students’ financial situation.

“I am all for an increase in tuition, but not on these terms,” said Madelyn Demaret, freshman German and politics double major. “As is, the school has not made it clear exactly what the increase will be going towards, and why it is actually necessary. There is no value in going to a school so expensive, no matter how good the education is. Financially, it does not make sense. I came because of scholarship money, and I would love to know if they are going to increase my scholarship by 3.8% as well. If you can make the increase worth it, by all means, approve a tuition increase. But you can’t tell me that there are not other things that could be cut first before forcing students to pay more than the already exorbitant amount that we do.”

“I did think that the increase was a little high, especially from the increase that was last year,” said Toni-Anne Berry, a sophomore politics major. “I don’t know exactly what the money is going too, but maybe learning where the money will be going to will be more helpful.”