Tuition for full-time liberal arts and engineering undergraduates at Johns Hopkins University will increase 3.5 percent this fall, the smallest percentage increase in 39 years.
The increase, amounting to $1,540, is also the smallest in dollar terms in three years. It will bring 2013–14 tuition to $45,470 for the more than 5,000 full-time undergraduates in the university's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Whiting School of Engineering, both located on the Homewood campus.
Those two schools have now kept undergraduate tuition hikes below 4 percent for five straight years; those five years represent the university's five smallest tuition increase percentages since the 1974–75 academic year.
Room and board rates for a typical double room and "anytime" meal plan will climb only 3.3 percent this fall, to $13,832. That will bring the total of tuition and room and board to $59,302, up 3.5 percent from the current academic year.
While restraining its tuition increases, the university has consistently been building its financial aid budget, allowing students with modest financial resources to pay considerably less than the so-called sticker price. The university's student aid resources were recently bolstered by a 10-year $100 million commitment from philanthropist and New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, announced in January as part of a larger $350 million gift. Bloomberg is a 1964 Johns Hopkins Engineering graduate.
The university's average grant for freshmen entering this fall on financial aid—projected to be more than 43 percent of the class—is expected to be just under $38,000, up from $35,517 this academic year. When that is subtracted from the tuition, room and board, and personal expenses total of $62,652, the average out-of-pocket cost for freshmen on financial aid will be $22,864. Thanks to the increased aid budget, that out-of-pocket average is $444, or 1.9 percent, lower than the current academic year.
A 3.5 percent tuition increase will apply to the more than 300 undergraduate musicians studying full time at the university's Peabody Conservatory in the Mount Vernon neighborhood. Their tuition will be $39,796, up $1,346 from the current $38,450.
The School of Nursing, with 485 full-time undergrads studying in accelerated programs on the East Baltimore campus, will increase undergraduate tuition by 2.5 percent. Tuition for the 13-month accelerated track will be $67,344 for the entire program, an increase of $1,644 from the current $65,700. For the new accelerated 17-month track program, the tuition will be $67,765.
