Updated Oct. 28, 2013
GW’s tuition spiked nearly 50 percent the past 15 years, rising faster than most of its competitor schools, according to data released last week.
The University’s tuition, which is the highest among the 14 institutions it considers its peer schools, increased more steeply than 11 of those schools during that time, according to the data compiled by The Chronicle of Higher Education.
All of GW’s peer schools, which include American and Boston Universities as well as more elite schools like Duke, saw increases of at least 30 percent since 1998 while accounting for inflation.
While the skyrocketing cost of college has increasingly come under scrutiny, particularly at private colleges like GW, where students’ tuition is the main source of revenue, a report from the College Board this week showed that costs are now rising more slowly.
GW saw its largest growth in 2005, when tuition spiked 14 percent in one year. The same year, the University implemented a fixed tuition policy, so that students’ tuition stays the same for up to five years.
Since then, tuition has grown less than 4 percent annually.
Although the report found that most schools grew tuition by the smallest percent since the 1970s this year, Sandy Baum, a senior fellow in the Graduate School of Education and Human Development, said most college’s financial aid pool cannot keep up.
Most students do not pay a college’s sticker price, which means it is likely that tuition will continue to rise, she said.
“At most colleges, even students who don’t get financial aid are paying considerably less than the cost of their education,” said Baum. “In other words, they’re being subsidized. If you go to GW, you’re being subsidized because of earnings from the endowment and other annual givings to the university and so on.”
Tuition costs have increased about 3 percent annually under University President Steven Knapp, who has heralded cost of attendance as a key priority since coming to GW in 2007. Since he arrived, GW increased its financial aid by about a third, including a sharp rise in grant aid.
Like at most schools, tuition increases at GW balance the need to maintain financial aid and attract students from a variety of backgrounds, the University’s treasurer Lou Katz told The Hatchet earlier this year.
“Long term, you’ve got to be cognizant of what families can afford and what they can pay and balance out how you get there, because it does have impact,” Katz said then.
The University’s endowment is about $1.37 billion, significantly lower than the rest of its peer schools, such as Northwestern University with a $7 billion endowment.
GW’s tuition totaled $47,343 this year, on top of about $11,000 in housing and fees.
Duke University, which had the highest tuition in 1998, increased tuition by about 32 percent, the lowest of any GW’s peer schools.
