While Loyola’s transfer rates show no indication of more students leaving because of tuition increases this year, some students’ pockets have already felt the burn.
One of those students affected by the rising cost of tuition is Kieu Tran, a former Loyola mass communication junior who transferred to Louisiana State University this semester.
According to Tran, the amount of money she was paying each semester was already overwhelming but she was barely managing. She had some grants and other loans that helped pay for her education, but didn’t have a scholarship, which hurt her chances of staying at Loyola.
The 5.9 percent tuition increase this academic year proved to be too much for her by the end of last semester.
‘ ‘Loyola is really expensive. I really didn’t want to transfer because I was heavily involved in student media, but I’m paying for school myself so I couldn’t afford to keep taking loans out,’ Tran said. ‘I just couldn’t financially do this anymore. It was my breaking point this semester.’
Tran is not the only student suffering from Loyola’s price tag. Devin West, former management sophomore, is taking a semester off from school because he lost one of his scholarships after failing to meet the grade requirements. And with the tuition increase, West couldn’t afford to pay the difference he lost from his scholarship.
Although school wide retention has reached about 84 percent – its highest since 1999 according to Institutional Resources – the tuition increase this year and an additional 5.9 percent tuition increase approved by the Board of Trustees two weeks ago could change that number.
Edward Kvet, provost and vice president of Academic affairs, said the additional tuition increase for the next school year may be financially difficult for some students, but he doesn’t think it will dramatically affect retention.
‘I don’t think it will cause more students to transfer. I guess the only evidence I can give you is we had a similar tuition increase last year and our retention increased significantly last year,’ Kvet said.
According to Kvet, the students who transferred or sat out a semester this year are not an indication of transfer rates increasing any time soon.
‘I think it varies with individual cases ‘hellip; The part that is sometimes difficult is that the financial circumstances of some students change while they are here,’ he said. ‘We saw that especially after the economic thing. Students may have come and maybe once they are here, a parent or both parents become unemployed and those sorts of things. I don’t see it as anything abnormal.’
Kvet said the university is continuing to seek ways to help balance out the rising cost of tuition to assist students financially.
‘Our real strategic move is to try to continue to help fund those students as much as we possibly can and meet those unfunded financial situations. As a Jesuit institution, that’s really our focus,’ he said. ‘We continue to look at how we fund students and aid students so that’s something that constantly is under review.’
Craig Malveaux can be reached at
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