By Sarah Metcalf and Stephanie Vosk
Increased costs, including the rising rate of utilities and the growing need for financial aid, pushed the Budget Committee to raise tuition by nearly 6.2 percent this year, said Senior Vice President for Administration and Finance Larry Mucciolo.
The increase was up from last year’s 4.5 percent jump, which Mucciolo said was attributed to a larger student body which brought in more tuition dollars.
Mucciolo added the amount of student advocacy geared toward a low percentage increase, both from the Student Government Association (SGA) and the Student Affairs Office, helped persuade the committee to settle on a 4.5 percent increase last year, which was the lowest in over a decade.
He did not attribute this year’s rise to a lack of advocacy from students. He said the students had other priorities.
“I think the advocacy was there this year, but I think the form it took was to make sure we maintained the level of financial aid,” Mucciolo said.
He said this year’s budget will keep financial aid at around 30 percent.
As tuition increases, the amount of financial aid also rises, and goes mostly toward incoming freshmen, because Northeastern works on a set five-year student financial aid package program.
Student Government Association President Bill Durkin, who sat on the committee this year as a non-voting member, said the students put financial aid on the top of their list of priorities.
“Faced with inevitable tuition hikes, they need to maintain financial aid,” Durkin said, adding “I think our efforts were successful this year.”
Though Mucciolo said part of the rise will also go to fund the academic portion of West Village F, including the John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute and several classrooms, the money for the residence hall portion will come from the auxiliary budget.
The auxiliary budget operates independently from the university-wide budget and goes to fund Residential Life services and other outside endeavors, including the Warren Conference Center in Ashland.
Mucciolo also cited continuing academic investments as the cause of the hike. This includes the Academic Investment Plan, he said, which will fund the hiring of 100 new professors over five years.
Though SGA Sen. Michael Benson, who sat on the CFP last year, said a verbal agreement was reached that the tuition increase would stay at 4.5 percent for the duration of the Academic Investment Plan, Provost Ahmed Abdelal said no such agreement was reached.
“There was simply no discussion in CFP of what tuition should or will be in future years,” he said.
Abdelal added that the figure of 4.5 percent was one of 10 budget exercises, all with different percentage increases, in which the CFP made an attempt to predict how much money would be available in all types of different circumstances.
This year’s CFP mapped out several scenarios of the budget based on different tuition increases. This is the first time a CFP has chosen not to recommend a number, Mucciolo said.
Durkin said the committee voted not to recommend a number.
“We felt like with such a tight budget, we couldn’t come down with a tuition number that wasn’t arbitrary,” Durkin said. “We decided that it would be best for the Budget Committee to decide.”
The CFP is the last committee where student representatives can vote on the budget process.
Last semester, SGA made it one of their top priorities to extend Snell Library hours, and voting members on the CFP campaigned for funding to cover the cost. Abdelal said the CFP did choose to set aside money dedicated to keeping the library open later as a result of SGA’s push.
