Along with several of its Ivy League peers, Penn will pass the $50,000 mark next academic year for tuition, fees, room and board. Full freight for a year of undergraduate education will come to $51,944 in 2010-11. Tuition accounts for $36,208. The overall cost is up 3.8 percent from last year—the second-lowest increase in more than four decades, and one of the lowest among its Ivy peers this year.
The University will also expand its financial-aid budget by 11 percent, to $149 million. That’s in keeping with another trend. Last year the number of undergraduates receiving aid rose by 10 percent, while total aid expenditures grew by 19 percent. Penn will stick to its program of replacing loans with grants for all aid-eligible undergraduates, which began in September 2009.
“The effects of the lingering recession remain deep and painful, with millions still without work as many struggle to meet their day-to-day obligations,” Penn President Amy Gutmann said. “This is why we remain so committed to no-loan financial-aid packages.”
The increase in the financial-aid budget occurs against a backdrop of relative fiscal austerity on campus. Ongoing cost-containment measures, adopted in 2008, have included reining in annual salary increases for faculty and staff, eliminating recruitment bonuses, leaving some positions unfilled, curtailing expenditures on travel and meals, and other measures that are expected to produce $100 million in total savings over the full 30-month period.
—T.P.