Next year's tuition increases will be offset in large part by increases in financial aid, especially in the Alpert Medical School, according to a University press release following the Corporation meeting in February.
Undergraduates will see a 4.5 percent increase in total charge, which includes tuition, room and board and other fees, from $49,128 to $51,360 per student, according to the press release. The increase will be partially offset by a 6.5 percent increase in the financial aid budget, from $76.5 to $81.5 million.
The release also states that graduate tuition will rise by a similar 4.9 percent, offset by a 14.4 percent increase in budgeted support to graduate students, to a total of $45.5 million.
But medical students will see the most dramatic difference next year, when a 5 percent increase in medical tuition will be met with a 16-percent increase in financial aid, bringing the Med School's new financial aid budget to $6.7 million.
The reason for the increase in the Med School's financial aid was two-fold, according to Associate Dean for Medical Education Philip Gruppuso, who oversees the Med School's Office of Financial Aid.
He said that while the Med School used to rely on its endowment and alums' contributions to finance their aid budget, the school is now finding that these sources are no longer sufficient for its larger student body.
Additionally, the introduction of need-blind admissions to the College in 2002 has caused a gradual "falloff in the quality of the financial aid package" for medical students that the new budget aims to rectify, Gruppuso said.
"But we had to move resources from other places to increase that financial aid," Gruppuso said. He declined to comment on where the funds had come from, but noted that the increase in Med School financial aid comes directly from the Med School budget, and does not affect the allocation of funds elsewhere in the University.
"This is a separate pool of resources from anything that has to do with the undergraduate college," he said.
Director of Financial Aid Jim Tilton, who is responsible for undergraduate financial aid, said that Brown is "keeping up with our peers" in regard to the $5 million increase in the financial aid budget.
"We meet 100 percent of need, and if tuition goes up, we need to meet that need," he said.
About $400,000 of the increase in financial aid will be set aside to accommodate the projected increase in transfer students for next year, Tilton said.
He said the increase in financial aid should allow this year's incoming freshman class to have a "very similar" level of financial responsibilities to those of students in previous years.
