Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Logo of The Middlebury Campus
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Making Affordability a Priority

Not long ago, Middlebury was one of the most expensive schools in the United States. We charged a higher comprehensive fee than any of our peers and, as a result, began to accrue a reputation of extreme wealth and financial exclusivity. Then, in 2009 the school adopted its CPI+1 policy. The program has restricted tuition increases over recent years to only one percent higher than inflation and has achieved significant success. However, President Liebowitz wrote in an email over break that the administration has recommended to the Board of Trustees to abandon our CPI+1 policy in order to significantly increase tuition, citing increasing faculty salaries and pressure from new federal compliance programs as the predominant additional costs that the College struggles to meet. The sight of a rising price tag is never appealing. As a result we as a board would like to highlight how we should not abandon CPI+1, or other measures intended to control costs, without a great deal of thought.


At the time of the program’s introduction, Middlebury College was the most expensive out of 21 of our peer schools. Now it sits in the eighteenth spot in terms of absolute cost. In other words, we are significantly less expensive than almost all comparable schools, demonstrating that the College has succeeded in both reining in the seemingly runaway increases in tuition price and, more importantly, in making affordability a priority. The effect of this effort can be seen in a gradual expansion of students on financial aid over the years and culminates in the class of 2018, of which an historic 48 percent receive some form of financial aid. We expect neither this progress to be undone nor this trend to change, provided that the College considers the following factors.


Given that the brunt of these increases will be borne by families who pay full tuition, the College ought to be mindful of those students stuck in the financial limbo of not being well-off enough to afford full tuition while still not qualifying for the school’s financial aid packages. The contrast between paying for something and not being able to afford it is perhaps most stark to families who are forced to pinch pennies and take risky loans to finance each semester of their children’s Middlebury education. Increasing tuition at a significantly higher rate will force more families into this precarious position and make it harder on those who are already there. The College will need to expand its financial aid to match this widening divide and ensure that they are not exacerbating an already crushing financial burden.


The College should also be wary that we will likely surpass the $60,000 mark. Even if it is only a nominal change for those who otherwise receive aid, we need to consider how potential applicants will see us and react to the sticker price. Many students, particularly first generation and those that do not come from academic families, are not familiar with Middlebury’s financial aid resources and immediately write off the school for its price tag. The College should prioritize marketing its financial aid programs to middle- and low-income applicants so that the rise in tuition does not cause an unintentional deterrence from the school.


Nevertheless, we understand that same increase in tuition could potentially increase accessibility to the College, especially considering President Liebowitz’s assurance that students on financial aid would remain unaffected. We understand the higher education is a tricky business and that a rise in tuition could provide the College with many benefits and opportunities. We also understand that money can be lost in administrative bloat and unnecessary regulations and expenses. What we want, therefore, is transparency. The College needs to tell us where this money is going and why. If it is paying for students on financial aid, we want to know that. If the financial aid budget will remain unchanged and it is going to faculty salaries, we want to know that, too. It should be the college’s responsibility to tell us exactly what their reasons for raising tuition are and how they plan to determine future years’ tuitions. As we said in our last editorial on tuition, this degree of transparency should be a given when the college decides to change its financial policies.


Finally, there is no reason why the College should buy into the collective higher education “arms race” and resign itself to the inexorable rise in tuition. We call on Old Chapel, and particularly incoming College President Laurie L. Patton, to take on this challenge in the months and years ahead. Are there opportunities to cut costs where needed and to fight administrative bloat? And can the College rely on the revenue from the language sources, schools abroad and any prospective online learning ventures to give families caught in the middle a reprieve?


President Liebowitz’s promise that the price spike will not affect students on aid appears to be a good start to a people-oriented approach to what may be an inevitable rise in tuition. In the absence of CPI+1 as a measure to control the comprehensive fee, the College needs to ensure that the change will make the college more accessible, and they need to convince us, the students, that that is what they are doing. Old Chapel could do this by showing us a projection of what the school will look like if tuition stays the same, if it rises by a certain amount, or if it fell by that amount. Transparency and a people-oriented approach will be necessary to make this price change work to improve our school.


 

Comments