The comprehensive fee to attend Bowdoin will be going up. Just how much, however, remains to be seen.
When the Board of Trustees meets next weekend, voting on and accepting a comprehensive fee for fiscal year (FY) 2012 will be one of the major tasks on its itinerary.
Though a number has not been agreed upon, President Barry Mills said that the College used a 3 percent increase as the benchmark when calculating financial aid packages to prospective first year students.
According to Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Katy Longley, if the College does stick to a 3 percent increase next year, it would be the lowest percentage increase since 1971.
Should it keep to the 3 percent raise, the College would be below the average percent increase of peer institutions. Both the mean and median increase for peer colleges and universities—at least among those that have announced their comprehensive fee for FY 2012—is 3.5 percent.
A 3 percent increase would bring the total fee to $54,466, up from $52,880 in FY 2011, putting Bowdoin slightly above mean and median totals for peer schools.
Mills said the College's intention is to try and keep the increase modest.
"I'm very, very sensitive of the economic pressures that families that send their kids to Bowdoin have today," he said.
Longley credited Mills' Blue Tarp Committee for keeping costs low.
"We've had a couple lean years and better than expected endowment returns," said Longley. "That enabled us to keep the comprehensive fee as low as we can."
Longley added that in the plan being presented to the Trustees, the number of students receiving financial aid would increase, as would the average grant.