Dartmouth to raise tuition by nearly 5 percent

Maybe we can cap college professor's salaries? No, Obama will never do that to his loyal constituencies.

Better get a part time job!

This is disgraceful---private colleges are just continuing to price the middle class right out of their ivy covered doors. Where does it stop? There is no accountability here.

"Dartmouth is positioned well for the future" --But they don't care about the future of their undergrads! $200,000 for a liberal arts snob degree! Disgraceful.

This is crazy. I graduated from Dartmouth 14 years ago and the cost was half of what it is now. What has happened in 14 years to make the price of this education double??

Actually pricing is going back to the norm. What is unusual is that middle classes even briefly had an opportunity to attend elite private schools. The "price to income ratio" of private colleges for the last 200 years has always been too high for the middle class to attend. We are reverting to a more normal situation where only the high socioeconomic groups can attend elite private colleges. This era of liberal financial aid lasted thirty years, but is likely to disappear for the most part in the next decade or so. Default rates on student loans are going higher and their will be no bailout of student loans, at least to the point that the middle class will ever again have an opportunity to rub elbows with the rich.

how is this news? for as long as i can remember, every ivy league school has raised tuition every year between 3% and 5%.

Professor salaries are not the biggest factor here. If you think it's disgraceful, send your kids to another school. Schools like Dartmouth do a really great job of providing financial aid to children from low and low-middle class homes. They fall short for middle class families, but I would argue that this is true of all private schools. It's more about the system than anything particular to Dartmouth.

Long live elitism.....the Ivies are tax free institutions and its time that ends - they need to start paying taxes and carry their fair share.

You're right - no accountability. But there's also no competition - the anti-trust violations and collusion among the Ivy League schools is unbelievable.

When the populous has had a enough and finally rebels against the US aristocracy - the Ivy league schools will be among those hardest hit. How many of the geniuses that ran our financial system into the ground were educated at Dartmouth, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Penn, andetc.... The Ivy League is great at teaching GREED and corruption!

Wellesley admits their sudents on a "need-blind" basis. More schools should do that.

Admissions office is reporting a decrease in applicants; bursars office is reporting an increase in unpaid tuition; ... on and on and on...

yes, Doug... college professor's salaries - with their lucrative stock plans - regularily reach into the tens-of-millions. just like the CEOs of failing American companies.

also, do you know what "RTFA "means?

"The school said in a statement that it will cut compensation by $28 million. The majority of the compensation reduction comes from a salary freeze for fiscal year 2010, it said."

Universities should be payed for by the state, and be open for all, like in many European countries.

This isn't just limited to private schools anymore. Even the state schools are raising their fees across the board. They have no choice, what with less money coming in from the feds. Can you imagine what we could have done with all of the money wasted by going to Iraq looking vainly for WMD's? Everybody could have gone to college that qualified. And more than 4,000 of of soldiers would still be alive. Thanks George!

As long as Congress thinks it is in the best interest of students and parents to keep providing massive amounts of loan funding, the colleges will find a way to spend it all. The only way to reduce college costs is to reduce the money available. That might be a litle painful in the short run but it really is the long term solution. There simpy is no justification for colleges to be annually raising their costs at a rate in excess of inflation.

before you scold Dartmouth, consider the following:
Dartmouth admits on "need-blind" basis
Dartmouth recently announced full tuition coverage for families under a certail level (~$80K, I think)

Tuition hikes are necessary, but really don't price out the lower or lower middle class.

Dartmouth also admits students on a need blind basis. All that means is that students from all economic backgrounds can get in. It does not mean that the students are guaranteed scholarships or financial aid. I attended Dartmouth for about the same cost as UNH or UMASS would have been beause my parents had no money. For many private schools, applicants from low to middle income families get tremendous assistance from the schools. This idea of elitist institutions for the rich only is largely false. Most all of my friends from college came received financial aid..

Dartmouth gives a FREE education (Tuition, Room & Board) to families earning less than $75,000. Free is cheaper than any public college in Massachusetts. It is also cheaper than not going to college at all, and having to work for one's room and board.

In the past, many of us who did not qualify for free tuition still attended Dartmouth for less than our state college offered us. The college is keeping true to this constituency.

Higher Education, financially-speaking, @ The private universities, colleges, is becoming way-y-over-the-top.

Even State Universities, Penn State for instance, are approaching the "financially-unapproachable" level of 40k/year.
Compare that with The University of Michigans' tuition; an institution which in my opinion, has far more gravitas. Thank God I haven't any progeny to educate!

Thank God,

Maybe these schools should pay taxes? I know that here in Beverly. Endicott college has bought up almost an entire section of the Gold-Coast. These were once ocean front estates, now they are part of a campus that can grow without any competition as they can buy without regard for taxation. At the same time, anyone here who owns commercial property gets taxed at 3 times a higher rate than residential... Does this sound fair?

Now that we can't draw down on our houses to pay for education...who will enroll?

If anyone remembers, Dartmouth also provides full tuition compensation for certain individuals in its financial aid suite. Specifically, if I remember correctly, students from families with a combined annual income of less than $75,000 are not charged any tuition. I believe that encompasses the majority of the middle class. Additional financial aid packages are provided to other individuals above that threshhold and admissions is need-blind. Dartmouth is peculiar in that it focuses almost solely on the education of the undergraduate, and as such, does not rake in the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research grants fed by your tax dollars that, say, Harvard or Yale do, and which form a substantial fraction of their revenues, if memory serves.

I attended Dartmouth, and I am still paying loans off, and will be doing so for the forseeable future, but I don't regret a penny of it. It was an excellent education.

What ever happened to the idea that you have to pay to play? I am all for these institutions charging what they do. It's their choice. If you can't find a way to afford it, then don't go. Pretty simple. Kind of like, if you don't have the money to pay for the charges to your credit cards, don't buy on credit. Enough of you whiners.
Last time I checked, Obama didn't control the tuition fees for private schools. Is that what you want? Go to a state school..or better yet a community college if you can't afford an Ivy. The Ivy diploma does cost extra and rightly so.

Leave us full paying citizens alone and happy in our overtaxed lives. We work hard for our money and can spend it how we please.

I am an alum and do not work for the college and do not defend my alma mater on many topics. On financial accessibility, however, I think they have done an exceptional job.

I was from a solidly middle-class family (father a civil engineer and mother a social worker) and went to Dartmouth for less money than my state university.

A Correction to my earlier statement: For families making less than $75,000, Dartmouth provides free tuition; the approximately $10,000 in room and board is still part of the financial aid package, however. The point remains - the ivies can be more financially accessible for low to middle income students than the state schools.

thank you to the few voices of sanity on here - including dartmouth 87.

i agree completely with him/her, as a fellow dartmouth alum. there's much dartmouth has wrong - such as its stiflingly liberal biasl, both inside the classroom and outside. but one thing it does very well is financial aid.

sadly so much of what fuels these hateful comments is envy and class warfare. for instance, what's with the comment that dartmouth should pay taxes? how would that help lower tuition if they had greater expenses?? which only proves that this person is bitter, and not interested in hearing the other side or in the great amount of good dartmouth (and other wealthy though expensive schools) does. too bad. we need to move beyond simplistic understandings of money that equate rich people with evil. that kind of thinking is just poisonous, self-defeating, and simplistic.

Dartmouth doesn't really give free tuition to families under $75,000. They say they do, but if you have any other assets, they stop considering you in that range.