Loyola’s tuition increase from 2006 to 2007 was lower than the national private college average of 6.3 percent, the College Board announced in a report released last month.
Despite Loyola’s lower-than-average increase of 5 percent, the school’s annual price tag climbed to $26,658, more than $3,000 higher than the $23,712 national average of all private colleges and universities.
The new figures could chip away at Loyola’s reputation as one of the “best buys” in higher education, a designation a number of influential publications gave the school. In 2006, Loyola was named one of “America’s 300 Best Buys” in Barron’s rankings of 1,500 colleges and universities. In 2002, Loyola ranked 12th in the South in the “Great Schools at Great Prices” category by U.S. News & World Report in its 16th annual guidebook to America’s Best Colleges.
Loyola’s tuition, combined with room and board, carries a price tag of $35,746. The most expensive school in the country was George Washington University in Washington, D.C, with tuition alone pegged at $37,820, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Rhonda Cartwright, vice president for finance and administration, said recent tuition hikes have been necessary because Loyola depends so heavily on tuition and fees for day-to-day operational costs. Tuition and fees, including discounts offered in the form of institutional grants, make up 71 percent of revenue at Loyola, Cartwright said. Among all private colleges, the tuition-and-fees package makes up an average 53 percent of revenues.
“Some of the items that would drive up our costs, and therefore tuition, are salaries, benefits (healthcare costs, life insurance, etc.), utilities, property and other types of insurance,” Cartwright wrote in an e-mail to The Maroon.
At four-year public schools, average tuition and fees went up 6.6 percent from 2006 to 2007, while the average for public two-year institutions rose 4.2 percent. All of those hikes were higher than the national inflation rate of about 3.5 percent.
Despite the rising price tag at Loyola, incoming freshmen can curb the sticker shock in 2008-2009 by cashing in on a one-year, $1,000 credit for enrolling students who visit the campus before May 1, 2008.
The price break is being offered as part of the university’s Centennial Celebration.
Michael Nissman can be reached at [email protected].
