Homewood undergraduate tuition will rise next year to
$33,900, a 7.2 percent increase that will enable the
university to cover new operating costs for campus security
without cutbacks in critical programs for students.
The increase of $2,280 from this year's $31,620
tuition was approved by the board of trustees at its
December meeting. The boost is $800 larger than the
increase of $1,480, or 4.9 percent, that went into effect
this fall.
Since adoption of President Brody's security action
plan last winter, the university has diverted more than $2
million from other spending and budgetary reserves into
enhancements of security at Homewood and in nearby
neighborhoods.
Brody recently announced plans to invest another $1.9
million to complete a network of "smart" closed-circuit TV
cameras and build an advanced security communications
center where camera operators and dispatchers will work
side by side. As with the earlier improvements, all the
onetime capital costs are being funded from elsewhere in
the university's budgets.
But without the tuition increase approved for next
fall, Brody said, Johns Hopkins would not be able to pay
the increased annual operating costs associated with those
security improvements and still cover inflation and
financial aid. The university would have been forced to
roll back recent improvements in undergraduate academics
and student life and delay others.
"That we will not do," Brody said. "We are not going
to cut into the quality of a Johns Hopkins education or
slow our progress in enhancing the undergraduate
experience."
The trustees have held most undergraduate tuition
increases in recent years under 5 percent, well below the
levels of earlier decades. The increases were enough to
cover inflation and financial aid, but nothing else, Brody
said in a letter to parents and a broadcast e-mail message
to students sent over the weekend.
That has left the deans of Arts and Sciences and
Engineering to find money from other sources, including
gifts to the university, to pay for academic and student
life initiatives.
"We have made remarkable progress," Brody said. "We
are expanding university housing, adding student facilities
and amenities, and enhancing academic and advising
resources. We are moving ahead with curricular innovations;
initiatives to build a stronger, more diverse campus
community; and increased financial aid.
"Our momentum is threatened, however, by unavoidable
demands elsewhere in the budget, particularly our increased
operating costs for safety and security," he said.
Brody said that, though there are no guarantees, the
trustees "do not envision this level of increase as setting
a precedent" for future years. He also said that the
schools continue to work to hold costs down and to raise
new funds through the Johns Hopkins: Knowledge for the
World campaign.
"Johns Hopkins will continue to work diligently to
control expenses and keep our cost of attendance
competitive with those of other private national
universities," the president said. The university's current
tuition ranks 12th among a group of 18 peer universities,
including the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT and Chicago.
Brody's message to parents and students is available online
at
webapps.jhu.edu/jhuniverse/today/tuitionltr.cfm.
A set of "frequently asked questions" on next year's
tuition is also online, at
webapps.jhu.edu/jhuniverse/today/tuitionq&a.cfm.
Next year's tuition rates for all the university's academic
programs are available at
http://tinyurl.com/7te6l.
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