News Release

Tuition for full-time undergraduates at the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus will increase 4.9 percent next year, the fourth year in a row that the university has held the annual increase below 5 percent.

Tuition for 2005-2006 will be $31,620, up $1,480 from this year's $30,140. That rate applies to the 4,200 full-time undergraduates in the university's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Whiting School of Engineering. The board of trustees approved the new charge along with next year's tuition for all other Johns Hopkins full-time and part-time programs.

Room and board charges for a typical residence hall room and meal plan next year will be $9,924, bringing total fees to $41,544, a 4.8 percent increase from the current $39,656.

At the direction of the trustees, the university has moved in recent years away from the higher-percentage tuition hikes of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. Before the fall of 1997, Homewood undergraduate tuition had increased 5 percent or more for 22 straight years. The increase was 10 percent or more seven times during those years.

More recently, the Homewood tuition increase has exceeded 5 percent only in fall 2000 and the following year, when the costs of operating the new Mattin Center and O'Connor Recreation Center were built into the rate structure.

The university this year dropped to12th in tuition among a group of 18 peer institutions that includes the entire Ivy League and universities such as MIT, Stanford, Chicago, Duke and Georgetown. Among the nine universities in that group known to have announced their tuition fees for next year, five are raising their sticker price by more than 5 percent, two announced hikes equal to Johns Hopkins at 4.9 percent and two are below that level.

Provost Steven Knapp said that the Johns Hopkins Arts and Sciences and Engineering schools have been working hard to control tuition increases while at the same time increasing financial aid and implementing the recommendations of the university's Commission on Undergraduate Education.

For many undergraduates, financial aid will cut the actual cost of next year's education at Johns Hopkins to well below the $31,620 tuition figure. Ellen Frishberg, director of student financial services, said that among Homewood undergraduate families who qualify for financial aid, the cost of attendance is typically half the tuition "sticker price" for a median family. For students with family incomes below $40,000, aid covers most of the cost of attendance.

Nearly 60 percent of Homewood undergraduates receive some form of need-based aid, Frishberg said, and more than 40 percent receive grant assistance from university funding. Financial assistance from all sources — university funds, federal grants and loans, and private or other aid — is more than $50 million a year.

The university also has been increasing the grant portion of financial aid packages and reducing loans. Last year's seniors graduated with an average $14,000 in student loan debt, a number below the national average.

Next year's tuition rates for each Johns Hopkins school and program are available online at webapps.jhu.edu/jhuniverse/information_about_hopkins/ facts_and_statistics/tuition_and_financial_aid.