DU’s Board of Trustees has approved a 4.93-percent tuition increase for the 2008–09 academic year, bringing the cost of a DU education to $32,976 for full-time undergraduates and most graduate students.
The tuition increase is the University’s smallest since 1999.
Room and board costs will increase by 4.72 percent to $9,108 for students choosing standard double-occupancy rooms and the premium meal plan. The undergraduate health fee will rise from $360 to $390, and the graduate health fee will rise from $120 to $130. All other student fees will remain unchanged.
The increases help to sustain the University’s continued investment in academic quality, Provost Gregg Kvistad wrote in a February letter to students and parents announcing the increases. That investment includes hiring and retaining faculty, maintaining small class sizes, providing undergraduate study-abroad and research opportunities, and enhancing research facilities and library resources.
“The more an institution invests in teaching and research, the better its students will be educated,” Kvistad wrote, noting that in the last three years the University has invested more than $5 million into the permanent budget to improve the undergraduate experience.
Kvistad says accessibility — the cost of attendance and provision of financial aid — remains a concern for the DU administration. To help offset the tuition increase, he says, the University is planning to increase its need-based financial aid pool for continuing undergraduates for 2008–09.