The Middlebury Board of Trustees approved a 4.5% increase in the annual undergraduate cost of attendance at its Feb. 7–8 meeting, raising the comprehensive fee from $86,850 to $90,756. At the same meeting, the trustees learned that the college’s budget deficit for the 2025 fiscal year is now expected to reach $14.1 million, about $5 million higher than the $8.9 million gap projected in October.
This most recent change in Middlebury’s price will mark a nearly 50% increase in the college’s cost of attendance over the past decade, starting at $61,046 during the 2015–2016 academic year. Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration David Provost said that this year’s increase is comparable to Middlebury’s peer institutions.
“Increasing [the comprehensive fee] at 4.5% next year reflects the realities of our cost structure and our commitment to providing unmet needs to all Middlebury students,” Provost told The Campus. “Most of our NESCAC peers, Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, they increased from 4% to 5.5% last year because inflation was high.”
Following the 4.5% increase, Middlebury College's tuition will rise from $67,100 to $70,120, room and board from $19,250 to $20,116, and the Student Government Association fee from $500 to $520 for 2025–2026 academic year.
“The tuition normally goes up in the 3% to 4% range,” Provost said, adding that they would normally increase at 3.5%, as happened last year.
“Our board made that decision in January and we assumed inflation was going to fall off like was predicted, [but] it did not,” Provost shared. “So the 4.5% really reflects a slight catch-up to what we incurred this past year, with an additional 1% from 3.5% to 4.5%.”
Despite the increase in the comprehensive fee, Provost stated that students receiving financial aid will not be disadvantaged, and that they will receive a similar match in funding to compensate for the increase in cost.
“If the tuition is going up a thousand dollars, your financial aid package would go up a thousand,” Provost elaborated.
The report Provost presented to the Board indicated that Middlebury the Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) alone accounted for a $8.7 million deficit, primarily due to low enrollment, which has led to lower-than-expected tuition revenue.
To address this, Executive Vice President and Provost Michelle McCauley updated trustees on a three-year plan to ensure the financial viability of MIIS, including measures such as phasing out specialized programs with low enrollment, enhancing digital student tools, launching new programs and working with the Language Schools and other universities on opportunities to collaborate.
“The Schools Abroad and Language Schools have been operating with a profit for the past number of years,” Provost stated. “The college and the institute normally lose money, and the college has operated at an operating deficit, so our expenses have exceeded our operating revenue for the last decade.”
He added that the relationship between tuition increases and Middlebury’s current financial deficit is weak, noting that Middlebury does not depend on tuition for its endowment. Provost said that each 1% increase in tuition adds about $1.2 million in revenue, adding that Middlebury has had financial deficits ranging from $3 to $20 million over the last decade, unlike most other peer institutions that either do not have deficits or quickly correct such gaps when they emerge.
“We have Language Schools, we have the Institute, but still, even at the undergraduate college, we have more people,” Provost said, adding that some benefits for faculty and staff differ from other NESCAC colleges.
While health benefits were a notable positive area in the Staff Council’s survey last year, concerns over faculty compensation and staff’s “skill matrix” pay scale remain thorny issues for a college struggling with financial deficits.
Provost added that the college has no intention of reducing costs through cuts to academic areas.
“We’re not going to change what’s going on in the classroom, the number of faculty,” he added. “What we spend on our instructional costs in the classroom is very comparable to our [NESCAC] peers.”
Vice President for Advancement Dan Courcey echoed Provost, noting the success of Middlebury’s current fundraising campaign “For Every Future: The Campaign for Middlebury.”
“We’re in the middle of a campaign which started on July 1, 2021 and we thought we’d be raising by June 30, 2028, upwards of $600 million,” Courcey said. “The truth is that we are now at $513 million towards that $600 million goal, so we are two years ahead of schedule on our campaign.”
A report Courcey shared with The Campus shows that Middlebury used to fundraise an average of $40 million annually before the start of this campaign and now averages $100 million per year.
“The campaign is for all of Middlebury, so it’s not just the college,” Courcey mentioned. “That’s for people both at Monterey and the Language Schools and Bread Loaf and the undergraduate college throughout Middlebury.”
Courcey also explained the campaign’s key priorities and highlighted the remarkable progress in each.
For financial aid and scholarships, $160 million has been raised toward the $215 million access goal, and $96 million toward the $120 million goal of “academic excellence.” Fifty million dollars has been raised toward the $70.5 million “experience” goal, while $38 million has been collected for the $117 million intended for new buildings and renovations.
Courcey admitted that fundraising is not always an easy process as higher education increasingly becomes a partisan issue in the U.S.
“Not everybody loves Middlebury, not everybody wants to give Middlebury money, that’s fine,” he added. “But there are people who do want to give, and we found that they will give very significant levels.”
Courcey also pointed out that the fundraising team is working closely with the finance team to ensure Middlebury is financially sound.
“There’s a point when the cash flow from this campaign keeps getting bigger and bigger and that intersects with the actual cost of Middlebury,” he suggested. “There’s an interjection probably by 2027 and 2028, where things get much, much better for this college relative to finance.”
Meanwhile, the Board of Trustees directed senior leadership to bring forth plans to achieve a balanced budget for the upcoming 2026 and 2027 fiscal years.
“The Board is very focused right now on how we can operate within our budget in a given year, and we’re working on that plan. We need to present [it] to them in May,” Provost said.
Hugo Zhang '28 (he/him) is a News Editor.
Hugo previously served as an Online Editor. He intends to major in Economics and Geography. He enjoys cartography, traveling, and history. Last summer, he studied at Sciences Po Paris and traveled across Europe. He has also conducted research on ethnic minority policies, economic transformation, and urban planning in Northeastern China, also known as Manchuria.
