February 26, 2003

Undergraduate tuition to increase 5.4 percent for 2004-05 academic year

Undergraduate tuition at Northwestern will increase 5.4 percent to $29,940 for the 2004-2005 academic year from the current year’s $28,404, University officials announced today.

The tuition increase will help fund increases in the University’s general operating expenses, including salary and health care benefits for Northwestern faculty and staff, the addition of new faculty members and anticipated rising energy costs in the coming year.

Northwestern will continue its long-standing policy and increase the total amount of grant funds for undergraduates by the same percentage as the tuition increase for the coming year. Northwestern provides approximately $60 million annually in financial aid to undergraduates. More than 40 percent of Northwestern’s undergraduates receive grants and scholarships from the University, and nearly 60 percent receive some form of assistance, including grants, external scholarships, loans or work-study funds.

Northwestern also will continue its policy of “need-blind” admissions, in which a student’s ability to pay is not considered during the admissions process.

The Board of Trustees approved an increase of 4.75 percent to $9,233 from $8,814 in room and board rates for an undergraduate student living in a double room and on the standard 16-meal-per-week board plan. Approximately 4,250 of Northwestern’s 7,700 undergraduate students live in University residence halls.

At the request of Northwest-ern’s student government and the University’s administration, the Board of Trustees also approved a new athletic events fee of $25 for undergraduate students. As a result, full-time undergraduate students will be admitted without charge to all of Northwestern’s home athletic events, including football and basketball games. The student government requested the system of an annual fee for all undergraduates with no admissions charge for individual games as a way of encouraging undergraduate students to attend Northwestern athletic events.

A separate athletic events fee is common at universities that have a Division I athletics program, as Northwestern does.

The undergraduate student activity fee of $120 will not increase next year.

Total undergraduate costs, including tuition, activity fee, athletic event fee and room and board will be $39,318 for 2004-2005, compared to $37,338 for the current academic year, a 5.3 percent increase.

Northwestern’s total costs are lower than average for major private research universities. Among a group of 16 similar institutions that includes Ivy League universities, Chicago, Duke, Stanford, Washington University in St. Louis and others, Northwestern’s total costs for the current year rank 13th out of the 16 institutions and are $357 less than the mean total costs of those institutions.

The Board of Trustees also approved tuition rates for most of its graduate and professional programs. Graduate school tuition will increase by 5.4 percent to $29,940 next year, and law school tuition will increase 5.9 percent to $35,896. Tuition for the Kellogg School of Management and the Feinberg School of Medicine will be finalized later this year.