Last Friday, from their meeting in San Francisco, The Carnegie Mellon Board of Trustees announced a 5 percent increase in undergraduate tuition. They also announced a new 0.5 percent technology fee beginning this fall. Tuition for current first-years and new students will be $30,650 this fall, while students who entered before 2003 will pay $30,200. Last year, undergraduate tuition increased 8.5 percent. Two levels of tuition were created to diminish the impact of that increase on enrolled students.

The price of campus housing will increase by 5.5 percent and board costs will increase four percent. The total cost of attendance will be $39,589. This includes a student activities fee of $235, an increase of 12 percent from last year.

Next year, Carnegie Mellon will charge students a technology fee of $150 to help pay for a substantial upgrade to Carnegie Mellon's unique campus environment. In a press release, William Elliott, vice president for enrollment, said the fee will help “retain and sustain its traditional competitive advantage in the field of computing.”

Elliott declined to comment more on the use of the technology fee, but did confirm that it would raise nearly $1.2 million this year. In previous years he has cited software site licenses as large expenses for the University.

“The operation of any network is not cheap,” said Elliott.

In an article published this month by Australian magazine CIO, Chuck Bartel, the University's director of network services, said updating the wireless network has become one of Carnegie Mellon's priorities.

“If you don’t deploy it yourself, it will probably get deployed by someone else, and in a manner you don’t want,” says Bartel in CIO.

According to the article, Bartel is worried that knowledgable students will install their own up-to-date technology on campus if the University doesn't.

The University has not upgraded its wireless network since it was installed more than six years ago.

“Many locations across campus have poor wireless reception, several of which are in Wean, the CS building, the one place that needs it most,” said Carol Liu, junior computer science student.

A representative from Computing Services could not be reached for comment.

Some of Carnegie Mellon's peer institutions have already announced tuition rates for next year that are, on average, nearly the same percentage increase over last year as Carnegie Mellon's. Georgetown University now charges $29,808; Cornell University, $28,630; and Stanford University, $29,847.

Elliott pointed to the University's small endowment size as a reason the University relies more heavily on tuition to bring in revenue than its peers. Seventy percent of costs are covered by student tuition at Carnegie Mellon.

Despite its relatively high price, Carnegie Mellon has not seen a drop in applications.

“Application continues to be very strong,” said Elliott.

In the fall the University met with current students, parents, and faculty to receive feedback about the cost of attendance and performance of the University. Elliott sees the rising price as a quality issue.

“Everyone understands that the cost of doing business goes up and didn't want tuition to go up excessively, but they also didn't want to diminish the quality of the Carnegie Mellon experience,” said Elliott.

“I wonder if there will be a limit to the rise in tuition. It can't keep growing endlessly, students won't be able to afford the education,” said Liu.

Since 1999, undergraduate tuition has increased 39 percent. While unable to quantify the increase in value of a Carnegie Mellon education in the last five years, Elliott said it takes a lot of money to sustain the University and that the University is a stronger institution than it was five years ago.

According to Linda Anderson, director of Enrollment Services, spending on endowed scholarships is $5.1 million this year, down from $5.9 million last year because of economic conditions and stock market trends. 64 percent of students receive financial aid.

Graduating students are accumulating more debt while at Carnegie Mellon. The average student loan indebtedness rose by 11 percent in the last year. According to Anderson, graduates in 2003 left with an average of $21,235 in debt.

In previous years, the University has said it would focus on expanding the humanities library collection and improving the Engineering and Science Library. Building renovations on the College of Fine Arts and Margaret Morrison Hall have been underway for some months. The new Posner Conference Center, though, was entirely paid for by a gift to the University.