A few days after Marquette announced a $1,240 tuition increase in undergraduate tuition for 2015-’16, students are still frustrated with the news.
“It will be a struggle to figure out how I will be able to afford this extra tuition,”said Emily Radtke, a freshman in the College of Education, said. “It is already a struggle now with this current tuition price and I’m frustrated with the fact that I have to work that much harder than I already do with scholarships, work and financial aid to cover this new tuition.”
Tuition will now cost $18,360 per semester and $36,720 for the school year. Marquette’s Board of Trustees approved this tuition raise after Lovell worked with members of his senior leadership team to examine university finances and determine the new price raise.
“We have gone to great lengths to ensure that tuition will remain as low as possible, and that by taking cost-reduction initiatives, Marquette will continue to provide a world-class, transformative education for years to come,” Lovell said in a letter to Marquette parents.
Marquette also announced that all room and board rates will go up two percent, in addition to increases in graduate school costs.
Students in the Graduate School and Graduate School of Management will now pay $25 more per credit, while graduate students in the College of Education face a per-credit increase of $20. School of Dentistry students will have an annual tuition increase of $2,180, and any full-time student enrolled in the Law School in fall 2010 or later will pay an additional $1,230 annually.
However, there is no change in the cost of student fees and even with the tuition increase, Marquette still ranks in the lower price half of all Jesuit colleges and universities.
Compared with other nonprofit, four-year private institutions that charge an average of $31,230, according to CollegeBoard, Marquette students face a higher tuition rate before merit or aid.
This rise in tuition marks the lowest increase in both dollar amount and percentage over the past four years, according to a university news release, with a $620 rise per semester and a 3.5 percent jump from last year’s tuition price.
The average increase in tuition was 4 percent over the past four years. Tuition rose on an average of 5.3 percent over the past decade. Students experienced the largest percentage hike during the 2008 recession, with an increase of 12.4 percent.
Seth Haines, a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences, said he recognizes the efforts made to keep tuition prices as low as possible.
“It is nice to see that this is the lowest tuition increase in the last four years and I absolutely applaud President Lovell for his efforts in keeping the tuition increase low,” Haines said.
However, Haines also said he hopes tuition will stay the same or get lower, as that could encourage higher-level education.
“I believe the best society is an educated society, and if we could allow more people to obtain a quality education, like Marquette provides, then we would better our society as a whole,” Haines said. “Thus, even though steps were obviously made to keep the tuition increase low, it would be fantastic to see the tuition froze or even lowered. Hopefully Marquette continues this trend of minimal tuition increases and also continues being below the national average of tuition costs for private universities and colleges.”