Tuition to increase by 3.9 percent

St. Bonaventure University's tuition and fees for the 2010-11 academic year will increase by 3.9 percent from 2009-10's, a dollar amount of $1,010.00, Sister Margaret Carney, O.S.F., university president, wrote in a Jan. 18 letter mailed to students.The university's Board of Trustees, with help from consultants, made the decision earlier than usual this year so families could plan accordingly for the future, Emily Sinsabaugh, vice president for university relations, said.

The Board of Trustees took many things into consideration during talks of increased tuition, she said.

"This year, we actually started the conversations about this over the summer months, and the conversation involves many considerations: what the institution's plans are for the coming year, what kinds of things we want to invest in to enhance the student experience, what our anticipated student enrollments are going to be (and) endowment performance," Sinsabaugh said.

The trustees worry about costs for students, so any suggestion of a tuition increase is something they wanted to be absolutely sure of in order to offer the quality of experience students expect, Sinsabaugh said.

According to Sinsabaugh, a history of sporadic fluctuations in tuition increases made the Board of Trustees evaluate how much it will increase tuition each year.

In the 2004-05 academic year, tuition increased 10 percent. The prior year increased 8 percent, and the year before that was 6 percent. Since 2005-06, it has never been more than 5 percent, a commitment the university plans to maintain, she said.

Though the university does not know exactly what the additional money will be used for, planning will decide where the money is allocated, she said.

"When we're planning for the future, if there are going to be unique budget requests or new budget requests, we actually know them more than one year in advance. So when I cant tell you specifically what the money will go to, it is all part of the university's planning process," Sinsabaugh said. "There will be things that we were planning for, including financial aid."

Student aid is something the university is focused on as a result of the increased costs, she said. New programs are in place to help students, including Working My Way.

"Working My Way is a new program that students who have really exhausted every other avenue for financial aid can have access to the ability to basically have a professional experience in one of our offices where they are actually learning a skill and work off some of their tuition." Sinsabaugh said.

Currently, five students participate in the new program, she said.

The university also invested money in institutional scholarships, primarily targeted at next year's freshman class, and the university will be able to maintain every scholarship promise to students who are already earning a scholarship, Sinsabaugh said.

Scholarships will not be indexed to the increased tuition fees, she said. Students will see that their scholarships will not decline even though the university's endowment suffered last year due to the economic decline. Regardless of the status of the endowment, no support will be reduced that was provided to the student.

Sister Margaret was unavailable for comment, but in her letter to the students, she reassured her commitment to helping them.

"I take very seriously your choice to invest in a St. Bonaventure University education," Sister Margaret wrote. "I will continue to dedicate myself and the resources of the University to supporting our extraordinary learner-centered environment that enables students to graduate on time and confidently pursue their goals and aspirations."

e-mail: mayersm@sbu.edu