DENVER—With tuition rising faster than most salaries, officials at private colleges and universities say they are funneling more into financial aid to help middle-class students.
Officials at schools like Colorado College, Regis University and the University of Denver say the number of applicants is stable. But they say they need to help students whose parents’ incomes are too much to qualify for government grants but not enough to afford $30,000 or $40,000 a year for tuition.
At Regis University, more than 80 percent of the 16,000 students are receiving some sort of help. Tuition for undergraduates this year is $26,600, up from $15,600 for tuition 10 years ago.
Regis devoted about $13.3 million to financial aid, or about double the figure from five years ago.
“We come at it from a mission perspective,” said Provost Allan Service. “We try to create access to this university in any way we can.”
At Colorado College in Colorado Springs, tuition has jumped from $37,600 three years ago to $42,400 this year.
Mark Hatch, vice president for enrollment at Colorado College, said the school has increased the money devoted to financial aid by about 35 percent in five years. The money comes from the school’s general fund and from a $500 million endowment.
“Middle-class families feel stretched,” he said. “This is an altruistic and genuine belief that we need to provide access to families like this.”
Nationally, average tuition and fees at private four-year colleges rose 6.3 percent from 2006 to 2007.
A number of elite private schools including Harvard have recently announced financial aid packages aimed at middle- and upper-middle-class students.
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Information from: The Denver Post,
