By Dennis O'Shea
Homewood

Tuition for full-time undergraduates at Homewood will increase 4.9 percent next year, the third year in a row and the sixth in the last eight that the university has held the annual increase below 5 percent.

Tuition for 2004-2005 will be $30,140, up $1,410 from this year's $28,730. That rate applies to the more than 4,100 full-time undergraduates in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Whiting School of Engineering.

The board of trustees approved the new charges at its December meeting, along with next year's tuition for all other Johns Hopkins full-time and part-time programs [see box, below].

At the direction of the trustees, the university has moved in recent years away from the higher-percentage tuition hikes of the 1970s, '80s and early '90s. 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 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 Homewood Schools remain committed to discipline in our costs, restraint in our tuition increases and active fund raising for financial aid, all to minimize — to the extent we can — the burden on our students and their families," said Daniel Weiss, the James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School.

Next year's charges for most of Johns Hopkins' peer institutions have not yet been announced. But Andrew Douglas, interim dean of the Whiting School, pointed out that the recent series of conservative increases at Johns Hopkins have this year brought the university down to 10th among its peer group of 18 private research universities in total cost of attendance, tuition plus room and board. Johns Hopkins ranked eighth in total charges last year and sixth the previous year. The peer group includes the entire Ivy League, and universities such as MIT, Stanford, Chicago, Duke and Georgetown.

"For the first time since the 2000-2001 academic year," Douglas said, "Homewood undergraduates are being charged tuition and room and board below the median of our peer group. That's an accomplishment that the trustees and administration hope to extend and improve on."

Financial aid will cut the actual cost of next year's education at Johns Hopkins for many undergraduates well below the $30,140 "sticker price." In fact, said Ellen Frishberg, director of student financial services, among Homewood undergraduate families who qualify for financial aid, the cost of attendance is typically half that sticker price.

This year, Frishberg said, 59 percent of Homewood undergrads are receiving some form of need-based aid, and 46 percent receive grants from the university's own funds. This year's total financial aid package from all sources — university funds, federal grants and loans, and private or other aid — is $55 million.

The university also has been increasing the grant portion of financial aid packages and reducing loans. Last spring's seniors on financial aid graduated with an average student loan debt of $13,300, below that of the four prior classes and well below the private college average of $21,200. The increased emphasis on grants was made possible in part by former trustee chairman Michael R. Bloomberg, now mayor of New York City.

Elsewhere in the university, full-time undergraduates at the Peabody Conservatory will pay annual tuition of $27,000 in the fall, up 4.4 percent from this year.

Tuition for undergraduates at the School of Nursing will increase 7 percent; that translates to a $22,224 charge in the traditional track and $41,760 in the accelerated program. Nursing undergraduates have been paying the lowest tuition among full-time Johns Hopkins undergraduates and among the lowest at any U.S. nursing school. The increase is necessary, school officials said, to maintain academic excellence in the face of cuts in Maryland state aid and recent restrictions on endowment payout.

Part-time undergraduate tuition in Engineering, SPSBE, Peabody and the summer program in Arts and Sciences will increase by varying amounts, from 1.8 percent to 5.6 percent.

 

The Breakdown by School and Program

Tuition increases for next year for most Johns Hopkins students are generally 5 percent or less. Exceptions include SAIS's Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, which will hike tuition 9 percent. SAIS's Washington, D.C., and Bologna Center tuitions will increase 6 percent. In all three cases, tuition remains competitive with that of peer institutions and below the rate charged elsewhere in the university.

The same is true at Nursing, where master of science in nursing tuition will increase 5.1 percent, and at SPSBE, where tuition for part-time business students in Washington and in Montgomery County will increase 7.8 percent.

The rate for full-time graduate students in Arts and Sciences and Engineering will, like that for undergrads in the two schools, rise $1,410, or 4.9 percent, to $30,140. But the graduate students will also be charged a $1,240 health insurance fee in the final year of a three-year phase-in of health insurance coverage for those students. In many cases, the tuition and fees for graduate students in the two schools is paid for from research grants or departmental funds.

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

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