Tuition at one of America’s most expensive universities just got even more so, officials announced Friday.
The board of trustees at George Washington University Friday voted for a 3.8 percenttuition increase for incoming 2007-08 freshman, the university announced Friday, raising the cost of higher education to $39,210 for the class of 2011.
Already, freshman at the Foggy Bottom university pay $37,790, not including room and board, university spokesman Matt Lindsay said. With room and board, that price goes up to $48,820. That’s about 75 percent of the average 2006 family income — about $65,000 — reported by the U.S. Census.
But incoming freshman as well as current students and parents are guaranteed under the university’s fixed-price tuition program that their tuition costs will not change for up to five years after enrolling, meaning that Friday’s decision was unlikely to inflame cash-strapped students and parents. The cost of room and board can fluctuate, Lindsay said.
At least 62 percent of undergraduates receive some sort of financial support from the university. The average amount of aid is about $20,000, Lindsay said. Under the fixed-price plan, students are also guaranteed that the amount of aid they receive from the university will not change, Lindsay said.
The increases will also extend to graduate programs. Most graduate programs can expect a 4.3 percent increase to $1,012 per credit hour, while full-time law students will see a 5.2 percent to $38,198.
But Matthew Brokman, a junior from New York, wondered Friday if he was getting his money’s worth for the hefty price tag for attending GWU.
“If you’re paying the highest tuition in the country, you would expect that your education and the services that they’re providing, that they’d be the best, and they’re not,” Brokman said.
The class of 2008 will be the first to graduate under the three-year-old fixed-tuition plan. Undergraduates who entered the school in 2004 paid $34,000 annual tuition. During the same period, the average annual tuition increase at private institutions was 6.3 percent, the university said Friday.
