The price is right. That is what the Saint Louis University Board of Trustees affirmed when they approved the annual mark up of SLU’s tuition rates for the 2011-2012 academic year.
In his January message to the SLU community, Lawrence Biondi, S.J. announced that undergraduate tuition would be increasing by 4 percent (3.5 percent for graduate study, 2 percent for the law school, 2 percent for the medical school and 4 percent for the Madrid Campus).
Housing rates will also increase at an average of 2.5 percent.
Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Bob Woodruff describes the University’s financial position as “solid” and credits the increases to SLU’s commitments to “staying competitive.”
“We know it is difficult to have any tuition increase, but we have commitments that we are required to fund, and we want to continue to enhance the academic offerings and enhance the quality of the campus and that requires investment,” Woodruff said.
Biondi reiterated this in his message as he cited that the tuition is increasing because the University’s costs also continue to rise.
“I believe the FY12 general operating budget appropriately balances the need to continue investing in our academic and student programs with the economic realities faced by our students and their families,” Biondi wrote in his message.
This increase allows the University to allocate $9.5 million in new spending according to the 2012 budget.
Eight million of this new spending budget will go towards increased faculty positions, a new Center for Interdisciplinary Study of the Courts and Advocacy in the School of Law, additional resources for the Pius XII Memorial and Medical Center Libraries and added classroom technology, to name a few.
The other $1.5 million in new spending will be used for additional resources for the Department of Public Safety and Security Services, new positions in the Division of Research and additional staff in the Student Success Centers.
Some students however, felt that the 4 percent increase was a little high even with the added support to academic programs.
“I feel like they are spending it on the right things, but the 4 percent hike is dramatic,” junior Dani Lewis said.
Student Government Association President Courtney Anvender supports this increase and feels that it was actually fair, considering the increases at other universities.
“We are actually on the low end of tuition increases across the board. Most schools are around 7 or 8 percent, so the 4 percent is quite modest,” Anvender said. “I was actually OK with it because I understand tuition needs to go up. We have more students, more programs, but the good thing about it is that it’s the same as last year.”
With these increases in tuition rates, the University is also increasing the merit awards given to the incoming freshmen class for 2011-2012 academic year, as the University Scholarship is increasing from $10,000 to $12,000, the Dean’s Scholarship is increasing from $12,000 to $14,000 and the Vice President Scholarship is increasing $15,000 to $16,000. Current students will not see an increase to their scholarship packages.
“We try to make a commitment to the student for four years so that when they get their first aid package freshman year, they understand that the University is committed to giving them that package for all four years,” Cari Wickliffe, Assistant Vice President and Director of Student Financial Services, said.
In 2012, it is projected that the University will provide approximately $113 million in institutional financial aid, which is about a 12 percent increase from the previous year 2011.
A portion of this increase in scholarship funds will be allocated to a new institutional aid for international students, which includes an investment of $1 million. International students currently do not receive as much support from the University in terms of scholarship assistance.
“As with the domestic students, there are some that have a need and many of them would love to come and are good students but they have financial restrictions,” Wickliffe said. “This increase in scholarship support for international students goes with the goal of the institution to become more global.”
This scholarship assistance will help “diversify the campus,” according to SGA Vice-President of International Affairs Adam Jin. Jin stated that although he was not involved in the discussions to increase the scholarship funds, he sees it as a positive step forward for international students on campus.
“International students have become a large group on campus. Most of them get here, not only to study here but to study the culture, so giving them money is good,” Jin said.
The University was able to keep the increase the same due to careful budgeting despite a loss in the endowment; the economic recession lead to a lot of uncertainly for the financial stability of many colleges and universities across the nation as many were forced to cut their budgets by laying off employees, eliminating academic programs and freezing salaries.
At the peak of the recession, SLU lost close to $200 million dollars from its endowment, the money or property donated to the University with the intention of investment.
On June 30, 2007, the endowment peaked $960 million, and on Dec. 31, 2009, it dropped to approximately $750 million. As of Dec. 30, 2010, the endowment has come back to approximately $800 million.
“The endowment began to pick back up because we didn’t panic and start moving our money around. We stuck with our asset allocation, and that really paid off,” Woodruff said.
The endowment is tied up in multiple investments including stocks, bonds, real estate, private equity and hedge funds. According to Woodruff, the University is projecting an 8 percent return on this money in a 10-year cycle in these investments.The University’s primary sources of revenue are tuition, auxiliary services, philanthropic support and investment return, with only 6 percent of the endowment being used for spending.
“Our financial position is good; we have never been highly leveraged. We have been fairly conservative in the way we budget so that when we got hit by this recession, we were able to weather that without any dramatic program closures or big layoffs or anything like that,” Woodruff said. “We didn’t panic and start moving our money around; we didn’t decide to take it all out or our investments.”
Additional reporting by Sean Worley and Kati Cundari.
