NYU Tuition to Top 50K Next Year

The total annual cost (including room and board) of NYU has gone up 65% in the past decade and next year it will reach an all-time high of $50,182 – a 5.9% increase from last year. The Washington Square News notes that the university is cash poor, drawing 60 percent of its resources from tuition. In an attempt to soften the blow, NYU plans to increase need-based aid to "more than $150 million" total.

This makes NYU the fourth most expensive in the United States, which is fitting because last month it dropped from #1 “dream school” to a lowly fourth place. The school's president, John Sexton, says the increase is happening because NYU just isn’t as well endowed as other schools. And according to the College Board, the NYU tuition spike is still less than the 7% average increase for private, four-year schools in New York state last year. It’s also below the national average increase of 6.3%.

Still, students like Zoe Baugardner are “really, really pissed about having to throw that on my parents.” And freshman Steven Matura tells the Washington Square News that he’d “like to see where the money is actually going because my roof in my incredibly expensive housing caved in twice over the course of this year.” (Watch video of more stunned reactions here.)

Photo of NYU commencement by j_bary.

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By John Del Signore in News on April 28, 2008 11:00 AM

Comments [rss]

pickycapellit

if they didn't keep buying up property all over town, maybe they'd have a little money for left for other things.

emilydickinson

I've spent a lot of years looking at resumes, and I can't ever think of a time where the name brand college someone attended swayed my decision. Unless you're in a technical field, like engineering or chemistry, you don't really learn all that much as an undergrad. You learn how to function in society as an adult, hopefully, but I think NYU just gives you a taste for expensive drugs and herpes.

Snoopy

Well my son went to Dartmouth and his cousin went to Yale on full tuition. I hope my younger son gets into Harvard and unlike others I can afford to send him to the best school that I can afford. I have been invited to give $3,000,000 for an addition to the library bookshelves. should I, or should I not? Princeton is calling. My mother's second husband went there and my son is granted an acceptance if I donate my left nut to the research lab.

Decisions, decisions. Help me please.

TKaisen

and you can get the same education at a state school for more than half the price.

SUNY Albany is $2k/semester (for in-state applications) if you don't live there. I think if you live there, get a meal plan, AND get health insurance, it might crest $5k.

NYU is five times that. I don't understand why anyone sends their kids to private universities at this point. No one cares about the name of the university on the degree anymore unless it happens to be the same university the interviewer went to.

Snoopy

50 big ones is the norm for most "private" schools. Are they worth it for the average student, probably not. Do these halls of higher education provide an extra awareness of what the real problems that face society and mankind and try to prepare for the "Doomsday" which is coming? No they don't. For the most part college is just four more years of high school, and the students ejaculated from those schools are no better prepared for the real world than when they left high school four years earlier.

asg749d

Everybody, pay attention: the only reason this is really happening is to help with the expansion to the middle east! The government of Abu Dhabi is willing to finance the entire project, but c'mom, NYU needs to prerare its own coffins in case something happens and they need to finance some part of the project. Read it all here: http://nymag.com/news/features/46000/

lower manhattan

YOu can't say "the total cost of tuition (including room and board)" because TUITION IS NOT ROOM AND BOARD. Jeez.

Steven

Even with the price increase people from small towns around the country still want to attend college in New York City.

Murray Hillster

I guess buying up most of the real estate in lower Manhattan at the height of a real estate bubble isn't working out as planned.

iank

well, i guess that's it for anyone who's family makes less than $300,000 a year... they're SOL.

jaja007

Strippers will be raising prices accordingly..

eyekantspel

200k for a 4 year degree at NYU. Kind of an oxymoron-- only a moron would pay that much to go to NYU.

universities are generous with benefits packages because they characteristically pay less salery-wise than corporate

More likely it's because of unions, and because the schools are largely insulated from market conditions. Student loans and grants help ensure than many can afford to pay outrageous amounts for tuition, without considering if it's worth it or not.

I love how kids blow this kind of money on degrees like women's studies and ethnomusicology (I mention these majors because I have friends with degrees in each). Those degrees predominantly lead to (1) unemployment (2) law school or (3) graduate studies in same so you can perpetuate the cycle by teaching it to someone else.

Atomische

At least the fountain will line up properly with the arch!

Kojak

A $2 Billion endowment is nothing to sneeze at, but for a school of that size its not much at all.

They should work on increasing the size of their endowment through more fundraising, pay + benefit cuts, penis pumps, and sketchy medication.

pazzia

isn't well endowed, eh? that's an unfortunate choice of words.

ed_Extinct

and you can get the same education at a state school for more than half the price.

Kojak

Is NYU more NYChu or NYJew?

jibbly

Running NYU graduate joke...

NYU acronym for Now You're Unemployed

No offense intended for those graduates who are gainfully employed.

Tgirl

universities are generous with benefits packages because they characteristically pay less salery-wise than corporate

smh

as an alumni of NYU, all I have to say is that this is gross.

a fellow classmate of mine worked for NYU fulltime for a few years after graduation. NYU offers $2 for $1 401K matching for ALL employees. so he would max out at $5K and NYU would give him another $10K.

the compensation schemes at private universities are completely out of whack. no private companies could ever afford to be so generous with their compensation packages.

Kojak

NYU is too big for its own good. They should consider spinning off a few schools and shrink itself. Focus more on the quality of learning with fewer students than trying to expand to every corner of the city.

Snoopy

Maybe NYU should start selling some of their real estate holdings and move out of NYC.

saveferris47

Tuition is in the mid-30s. Total expenses including optional meal plan, housing, health insurance, etc now can top 50,000.

sonyactivision

Apparently those supposedly smart, sharp-eyed kids who are unhappy about this missed that coupon in last month's Town And Country for 55 cents off tuition at NYU. Not to worry: I hear they will re-insert it in Newsday but this time it will only be 35 cents off. Administration officials cited "higher heating costs" as the reason for the lowered discount.