Colleges With Highest Tuition Wary of Economic Downturn
After years of ranking among the nation’s top five most expensive schools, Sarah Lawrence College — a private, liberal arts school in Bronxville, New York with a tuition price tag of more than $53,000 a year — is now the priciest school in America, beating out George Washington University and New York University, according to a new College Board report.
With such a hefty cost of attendance, the former all girls school, like many private colleges and universities, is concerned about its financial outlook in today’s economy (“Even at Costliest College, Unease Over Downturn,” The New York Times, Nov. 1, 2008).
Unlike public schools, which receive state and federal funding, private institutions like Sarah Lawrence depend on their tuition and fees, their fundraising efforts, and their endowments to pay for the bulk of their operational expenses.
Sarah Lawrence’s endowment, which the school uses to supplement its $80 million operating budget, has shrunk 16 percent from $77 million since May 2007. Yet, Sarah Lawrence still manages to offer 53 percent of its students some sort of financial aid — an expense that makes up 21 percent of the school’s budget.
While Sarah Lawrence has yet to see an uptick in the number of requests for financial aid this year, school president, Karen Lawrence, is wary of the economic pressures bearing down on the middle-and-upper-class families who may soon be or are already putting their kids through college.
“It’s really hard to tell how much we are going to be impacted,” Lawrence said. “Some students are struggling more because family finances are changes. We are trying to help them out.”
But, Lawrence said, the school’s small $65 million endowment, which pales in comparison to the $34 billion endowment of fellow liberal arts school Harvard University, is making it more difficult to help families meet Sarah Lawrence’s rising tuition costs.