University trustees raise room and board, freeze tuition

Tuition will not increase next year, the University announced on Sunday, but fees for room and board will rise by 19 percent, more than four times the percentage increases implemented in past years.

For the 2007-08 academic year, tuition will remain at $33,000, while room and board for undergraduates living on campus with full meal contracts will increase by $1,780. That brings the total cost of attending the University to $43,980, up from $42,200 last year.

This means total fees for undergraduates will increase by 4.2 percent, less than last year's 4.9 percent increase and 2005-06's increase of 5 percent. The Priorities Committee attributes its ability to hold tuition steady to the strength of the University's investment returns and the high volume of alumni giving.

"Every year the Priorities Committee looks for ways to capitalize on endowment returns," University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt '96 said.

As of the last fiscal year, which ended in June, the endowment had reached $13 billion. Investment returns were 19.5 percent, up from last year's 17 percent.

Princeton's ongoing expansion of the student body will also permit the University to expand services while still holding tuition constant, Cliatt said. Newly added benefits will include social and cultural events held through the residential colleges.

Unsurprisingly, students have reacted warmly to the tuition freeze.

"It sounds like a good idea," Sarah Constantin '10 said. "It sounds like they are trying to make Princeton more accessible to different people."

When tuition and room and board fees are added together, however, the cost increase is slightly higher than usual. The average per-year fee increase over the past 10 years has been 4.13 percent, compared to 4.2 percent for this year.

Furthermore, though University officials touted the coming year's tuition freeze, the new price tag for room and board — $10,980, versus $9,200 this year — constitutes a whopping 19 percent increase in the price of that package. In the last four years, room and board increases ranged from 3.4 percent to 4.8 percent.

The PriCom said this increase will go toward improvements in the University dining system, as well as paying for changes to the boarding plans within the new four-year residential colleges.

Financial aid will rise to cover these new charges and is intended to complement the recent changes to financial aid for eating clubs. Those adjustments aimed to provide extra assistance to juniors and seniors so that financial considerations would not prevent them from joining clubs if they chose.

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Cliatt and the PriCom stressed that next year's significant rise in room and board costs is meant to "equalize" those prices, matching them to the current costs of services provided.

"The increases in room and board pricing are intended to reflect costs more accurately," the PriCom said in its statement.

This current year's overall cost of attending Princeton is below Harvard's and Yale's prices, which are $43,655 and $43,050 per student, respectively. Current room and board costs also are below Harvard's and Yale's, which come in at $9,946 and $10,020, respectively. Those two schools have not yet released figures for next year, but Princeton's newly announced room and board fee of $10,980 would put it above those of Harvard and Yale if theirs remain unchanged.

"Over the past 10 years, the annual rate of increase to that package" — referring to room and board combined — "has been at the bottom end of the University's peer group," the PriCom report said.

The report also announced several new programs aimed at enhancing student life. International students will receive a new grant to help facilitate travel over winter break, while the Office of Information Technology will expand to include two new staff members, who will monitor the network infrastructure 24 hours a day.

The Priorities Committee also announced several new initiatives designed to assist employees and graduate students with families. A childcare benefit will offer up to $6,000 for employees with prekindergarten-age children whose family income is below $130,000. Additionally, the University will grant financial support to doctoral students who give birth while enrolled.

Those changes build on previous efforts to foster a more "family-friendly" environment at the University, the Committee said. Two years ago, the University added an extra year to its tenure clock for tenure-track professors who become parents.

Other programs approved by the Committee include funding for "additional graduate student instructional assistance," a new assistant dean of students to handle "student discipline and crisis management" and a halftime office assistant for the University's LGBT Center.

"I think it's certainly a benefit to Princeton that we've been able to manage our assets so well and add new [benefits] such as child care and the international [student] grant," outgoing USG president Alex Lehanan '07 said.