LUKE SHANNO EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Wartburg College administrators announced late last week that tuition, fees and room and board will be $35,065 for the 2009-2010 academic year using average first-year room and board rates for incoming students.
The change is a 4.9 percent increase over this year’s mark of $33,788. This is the thirteenth year in a row in which tuition has increased, but the percent increase is the lowest it’s been in the past decade, college administrators said.
This year’s increase follows a 7.3 percent increase before the 2007-2008 academic year and a 6.9 percent increase for this year.
“We tried to moderate the increase as much as possible,” Wartburg President William Hamm said. “However, our increase is consistent with what other institutions are doing.”
Full-time tuition will be $26,650 with fees of $800 for next year, bringing total tuition and fees to $27,450, up from $25,360 last year.
Room rates, based on costs for incoming students will be $3,615 while board costs for incoming students will be $4,000. Last year’s incoming student room rate was $3,435 while last year’s board rate was $3,820.
“We always have goals,” Vice President for Enrollment Management Edie Waldstein said. “We want to keep it as affordable and as low cost as possible, but we do have to weigh that against where we’re going in the future. It’s always a balancing act.”
Waldstein said, Wartburg falls in the middle when compared to benchmark institutions that they have information for. She said the lowest tuition increase they’ve seen comparatively is 3.9 percent. She added that they already know of institutions that have increases greater than those at Wartburg.
There are a multitude of factors that contributed to this year’s increase Hamm said. Increasing food prices, technology, faculty and staff salaries, the financial aid budget, expectations for fewer private gifts and the economic downturn were all cited as factors for this year’s increase.
Administrators agreed though that tuition was examined extremely closely this year due to external factors that the college cannot control.
“There’s a downturn in the economy. We know families are particularly sensitive to this, more than they have been in other years,” Waldstein said.
“We have to be mindful of that…and they need to feel from us that we understand their situation and we’re doing everything we can to keep the tuition increase as low as possible.”