Memo From John Sexton To File: Enroll More Tisch Students, Consider Cutting Back On Stern Candidates

Tuition at NYU will go up 5.3 percent for the 2006-07 school year, well beyond the rate of inflation (reported variously as about 3.3 or 3.4 percent):

NYU is projecting a 5.3 percent undergraduate tuition hike for the 2006-2007 academic year, a figure that mirrors last year’s hike and brings the annual total cost of tuition, housing and fees to approximately $46,800.

Tuition will rise $1,680 from last year’s figure to $33,370, and the average cost of full-time housing will be $11,730, up nearly $300. Last year, housing only cost $50 more than the year before.

The latest cost of attendance figures were posted yesterday on the financial aid office’s website and were also included in letters sent to recently admitted freshmen, according to one such letter that was obtained yesterday by WSN.

The figures will not be finalized until the university completes its final budget later this month, university spokesman John Beckman said.

“The figure that we sent out in the letter to acceptees is at this point an estimate,” Beckman said.

This year’s figures mark the fifth year that tuition has increased by at least 5 percent. The largest increase within the last 10 years was for the 2003-2004 academic year, in which tuition rose 6.8 percent to $30,095.

On a positive note, an increasing number of Tisch students seem not to realize the current rate of inflation:

Although tuition has increased, Tisch junior Tom Schecter said he believes that it is in line with the general trend of inflation.

“It’s going to get worse next year,” he said, adding that students respond to the hikes with “just the general bitching and moaning.”