Author: Ben Salkowe
Parents of Middlebury students will begin receiving letters from President Ronald D. Liebowitz today announcing a 2005-2006 comprehensive fee of $42,120 - a 4.25 percent increase from the current fee. An e-mail from the President's office will be sent to students in the next several days.
"This fee reflects a 4.25 percent increase, the lowest percentage increase in the past four years," wrote Liebowitz in the letter. "While the trustees are committed to keeping the increase as low as possible, they recognize that there are few shortcuts to ensuring an excellent faculty, to providing inspired teaching, to building and maintaining libraries and laboratories, or to remaining need-blind in our admissions process and meeting the full demonstrated financial aid for our admitted students."
The announcement came nearly a month later than has been tradition. In a departure from previous years, Old Chapel withheld its announcement after the Winter meeting of the Board of Trustees. Under President John McCardell, Jr. the decision last year was leaked from the February trustees meeting and quietly inserted in the monthly "MiddNews" put out by the Office of Public Affairs.
"I think it's the president's responsibility to convey to parents and students what the increase is," Liebowitz told The Campus. At the February Board meeting the Trustees approved a range for the 2005-2006 comprehensive fee and the president's staff agreed upon a final number last week.
In his letter to parents, Liebowitz noted that the increase was less than the 5.1 percent increase proposed by the Student Government Association's Comprehensive Fee Committee, and that the fee represented only part of the actual cost of a Middlebury education. "As many of you are aware," he wrote," revenue from the comprehensive fee covers just 60 percent of the cost of the Middlebury education; endowment income, grants, and gifts from alumni, parents and friends make up the remaining 40 percent."
Students wary of increases
Because the administration wanted parents to receive first word of the decision, The Campus was unable to discuss the decision with students prior to publishing. Most students, however, expressed ambivalence over an increase of any size after last year's landmark $40,400 fee.
"It's hard to understand why the fee has to rise every year," said Jessica Cox '07. "I think it would be very unfortunate if the fee were substantially increased again [this] year. It makes it very difficult for families who are paying the entire cost of school."
Cox noted that while financial aid helps some, there are families that do not qualify for grants but still struggle. "Financial aid isn't able to help everyone, as hard as they try," she said.
For students from high-income households, increased comprehensive fees are still affordable. For students from low-income households, financial aid awards adjust with tuition increases to cover their cost of attendance. Students caught in the middle, however, most feel the burden of comprehensive fee increases. Often these students receive limited financial aid or come from families with multiple children in college.
Sophomore Ben Davis suggested that more and more widely available financial aid at the College could make the actual comprehensive fee irrelevant.
"I have no problem with the Middlebury price tag. From what I understand our tuition fees don't even approach the [actual] cost of housing, feeding, entertaining and educating us," he said. "My problem is with the insufficient financial aid. In my case I think my aid is insufficient, but I understand that there are others with greater need."
Ironically, raising the 2005-2006 comprehensive fee will, in part, contribute to College efforts to improve financial aid offerings.
Davis said he thought that raising the fee to improve financial aid was a fair justification.
"If that additional cost can help provide better financial aid, why not raise it? If that additional fee goes to buy the hockey team new uniforms then it's a waste," he said.
The View from the Top
One consistent criticism of the College's current comprehensive fee is that it earns the College the unfortunate distinction of being the most expensive school of its peers (see GRAPH).
"The Administration needs to acknowledge that the higher Middlebury's tuition becomes, the more we distance ourselves from other competitive colleges who offer a similar education for a better price," said Jackie Hurwitz '07.
Eric Davis, Secretary of the College and Professor of Political Science, followed the decisions of Middlebury's peers this year while the final decision on the fee was being reached. "To date, the only other NESCAC college to announce its 2005-06 fee is Wesleyan, where the increase is 4.98 percent" said Professor Davis.
Other non-NESCAC schools have announced fee increases as high as 6.6 and 6.2 percent at Boston University and Georgetown University, respectively. "Middlebury's increase is the lowest that I have seen so far among highly selective colleges and universities," said Professor Davis.
"I'll be surprised if many other of our peer institutions have increases lower than 4.25 percent," said Liebowitz.
Nonetheless, given Middlebury's top rank last year as the most expensive NESCAC school, even a lower than usual increase may keep the College ahead of the pack in terms of an actual number. Administrators argue that the "price tag" does not influence the decisions of prospective students because financial aid adjusts the actual cost of attendance - students disagreed.
"My greatest concern with the high price is that Midd may be losing the interest of some students who would be great fits here based on that factor alone," said Hurwitz.
Because financial aid decisions are not known until after students apply, it is possible that some prospective students may never get beyond the initial "sticker shock" of the College's comprehensive fee, and actually apply.
"I feel like in America we prize education so highly and yet we make a good education attainable only for an inordinate price," said Cox. "A year of school for $40,000 is too much for many people to pay, even with help from financial aid. Trends towards higher fees for higher education are getting ridiculous."
Future of the Fee
While students and parents were only just learning of the fee increase, administrators involved in the decision expressed satisfaction with the agreement reached, and seemed optimistic about future increases.
"I am very pleased that Middlebury's fee increase for next year is the lowest in four years, and will almost certainly be below that of just about all the institutions with which we compete in recruiting for students and faculty members," said Professor Davis.
Professor Davis noted that the College was able to increase the fee at a lower rate and still leave room for goals of improving faculty compensation and getting 40 percent of the student body "on grant aid."
"One of the reasons that we will be able to maintain these goals in 2005-06, in spite of a somewhat lower fee increase than comparable colleges, is that our endowment performance in 2003-04 was at the high end of the range of comparable institutions. Middlebury's endowment increased by over 22 percent in 2003-04," said Professor Davis.
Liebowitz said his administration was attentive to the significant increases of the fee, and that they would be a consideration as the College addressed goals and priorities in its already underway planning process.
Because planning for the future will ultimately require additional resources, Liebowitz said a capital campaign would begin "sometime down the road," but not beginning next year.
Liebowitz said he hoped to keep future fee increases within one percent of inflation, but that such a goal would be difficult given factors such as salaries and benefits, health care costs in particular.
"It is difficult to do all we think is important with increases within a percentage point of inflation," he said.
Hurwitz said despite her criticisms of the fee, she could not say her experience at the College was not worth the price tag. "All in all, we get what we pay for," she said. "A beautiful campus, inspiring classes and a whole lot of pampering."
Midd Sticker Price Soars Again
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