Tuition, room and board rates for the 2007-08 academic year, set by the Board of Trustees on February 12, will rise by 5.17 percent to $45,608. Total undergraduate charges currently are $43,361 per year.
University officials note that the new tuition ($34,800, up 5.46 percent from $32,994) covers only about 60 percent of the cost of a year of undergraduate education. The “biggest driver” of increasing cost, according to Provost John Etchemendy, is faculty salaries and growing faculty numbers.
In a February 28 editorial titled “Stop the Tuition Squeeze,” the Stanford Daily noted that tuition had doubled since 1990 and argued that the $1,800 annual increase would be a “significant financial strain” on families. “With record fundraising, a booming endowment, a massive capital campaign just beginning and inflation in check, we wonder why administrators need to keep turning toward hard working students and their parents to pay for unchecked growth,” the editorial board wrote.
As part of a new program to help middle-income families, need-based scholarship funding will get a 15.2 percent boost. Under the new plan for households whose annual income is in the $60,000 to $135,000 range, the percentage of home equity assessed in calculating the amount of parental contribution will be capped at 1.5 times income, and the amount students are expected to borrow for the school year will drop to $2,000 from $3,500. In 2005-06, the last year for which numbers are available, 76.6 percent of students received financial aid.
The trustees increased the standard undergraduate room rate 5.46 percent, from $5,571 to $5,863. The standard board rate increased 3.1 percent, from $4,796 to $4,945.
