Two Catholic Schools Take Fresh Look at College Costs

Tuition Bills Lowered or Frozen at St. John’s and Mount St. Vincent

Posted

Two New York Catholic universities are taking steps to rein in the spiraling cost of a college education.

The College of Mount St. Vincent in the Bronx is rolling back tuition plus fees and room and board for incoming students for the 2015-2016 academic year. Tuition, fees and board would have totaled $45,550 next fall under the old formula, a standard four percent increase. It will now cost freshmen some $15,000 less, with a $10,000 tuition discount and a $5,000 discount in room and board and fees. For upperclassmen, tuition is being reduced in tandem with a reduction in their financial aid packages.

The new tuition policy was reflected in full-page advertisements in Catholic New York in January and February.

Meanwhile, St. John’s University announced Jan. 29 that it was freezing tuition, currently $37,870, as well as fees and room and board costs, for all current and incoming full-time and part-time undergraduate and graduate students at its Queens, Manhattan, Oakdale campuses and international locations for the 2015-1016 academic year.

St. John’s said it would also reduce undergraduate tuition by $10,370 for Staten Island students and freeze room and board costs and fees for the upcoming academic year. The school said “recent administrative restructuring and the nature of academic offerings” at that campus had made the tuition cut possible. Costs for graduate students at Staten Island will remain unchanged.

Mount St. Vincent President Dr. Charles L. Flynn told Catholic New York the change is all about fairness. He said Mount St. Vincent will diverge from the high-price, primarily merit awards model, characteristic of private institutions across the country to offer a lower sticker price, needs-based financial aid system that is more equitable and accessible, primarily to the hard-pressed middle class.

“Nationally, independent institutions have followed a high-price, high-discount model,” Dr. Flynn explained. “In other words there is a pattern where colleges tend to charge a high tuition sticker price and then give substantial merit awards. Usually it’s based on academic credentials so it’s without regard to need. And then students are encouraged to apply for need-based awards on top of those merit awards.

“We think that model is ending up putting higher education in a bad situation where students and their families sometimes are paying disproportionately much if they don’t get those merit awards. So students and their families end up not applying to schools that could serve them very well. They are assuming in advance they could never afford it. So what we’ve said is this has gone far enough! It isn’t fair. It isn’t equitable.”

Dr. Flynn said middle-class families are being squeezed because they don’t have the same amounts of aid available to them, noting, “In New York State, for example, you see that more and more middle-class and upper middle-class students are going to public institutions because they fear they can’t afford independent ones.”

He said Mount St. Vincent expects to make up the lower tuition and fees in increased enrollment. But the president stressed that his college was not instituting this change because of falling enrollment. In fact, he said it was quite the opposite.

“Last year we recruited the largest and academically strongest class in our history,” he said. “We had never recruited over 500 freshmen before. The college has never been bigger than it is right now. So we are in a good position to be able to take this initiative and assume the risk. And it’s the right initiative to take.”

Mount St. Vincent’s enrollment for this academic year is 1,800 students, including 1,450 undergraduates.

Proudly describing Mount St. Vincent as a “pioneer in affordable education,” for its stand, Dr. Flynn said other institutions had contacted him about the initiative including St. John’s, which also has a history of providing financial help to students. Currently more than 96 percent of St. John’s students receive financial aid.

Dr. Conrado “Bobby” Gempesaw, St. John’s first-year president, offered the same reason as to why his school was freezing and reducing some tuition.

“St. John’s is aware of the significant financial challenges facing college students and their families,” the St. John’s president noted in a statement announcing the freeze. “We are taking this action in an effort to help alleviate those burdens. Addressing the rising cost of higher education must be a priority, particularly in view of St. John’s mission as a Catholic and Vincentian university that is committed to providing students with an affordable education.”

St. John’s projects savings for the incoming freshmen of at least $4,560 on the cost of tuition over the course of four years. The tuition freeze and reduction will not apply to students at St. John’s University Law School, which has its own tuition structure.

Dr. Flynn said he hoped other private institutions would follow the lead of the two New York Catholic schools.

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “You know it isn’t always easy to be fair but it’s always right.”