Yale Bulletin and Calendar

February 23, 2001

Volume 29, Number 20

Yale College term bill is set at $34,030;
'Self-help' level remains unchanged
for the second consecutive year

Yale announced that undergraduate tuition and room and board for the 2001-2002 academic year will be $34,030, an increase of 3.5% over the current charge.

"Coupled with Yale's generous financial aid policies, this increase in the term bill will allow Yale to continue to provide the highest quality undergraduate education while remaining affordable to all students who are admitted," said President Richard C. Levin.

Levin announced that "self-help," the amount of money a student is expected to contribute to his or her college costs through part-time work and low-cost federal education loans, will remain unchanged for the second consecutive year. Freezing self-help is the equivalent of freezing the term bill for students on financial aid.

"No students receiving financial aid from Yale will have to pay any increase next year if their financial circumstances remain the same," Levin said. "Those students will instead receive increased aid from Yale that will offset the increase in the term bill.

"Yale remains deeply committed to the fundamental idea underlying our financial aid policy, which is that an undergraduate education should be available to all admitted students through a partnership of investment by the University, the student's family, and the student," Levin said.

Tuition for 2001-2002 will be $26,100 and room and board will cost $7,930. Tuition is currently $25,220 and the charge for room and board is $7,660.

Yale is one of a small number of schools that admit all students without regard to their ability to pay for college -- a policy called "need-blind" admissions -- and then meet the full demonstrated financial need of all admitted students.

As a result of its financial aid program, close to 40% of Yale undergraduates qualify for need-based aid from Yale. The average annual scholarship grant that Yale provides from its own funds to a student on financial aid is $15,600. An individual grant to a student can be as high as $29,000.

Yale has taken a number of steps in recent years to both increase the size of financial aid awards and to make more students eligible for need-based aid:

* Yale announced last November that its need-blind financial aid policies would be extended to international students beginning with those who apply for admission for the 2001-2002 academic year. Previously, need-blind admissions extended only to students from the United States and Canada.

* Students may apply all external scholarship aid first toward the self-help component of their aid packages (student loans and term-time work) without any reduction in scholarship aid from Yale. Yale scholarship is reduced only if the total of all external scholarships exceeds the student's self-help level.

* The first $150,000 of a family's assets, including savings and home equity, are exempt from the assets that are considered in determining a family's expected contribution toward the cost of attendance.

Yale has been a leader among private institutions in controlling the rate of increases in its term bill charges. In each of the last three years, Yale limited the increase to 2.9%, which was the lowest increase among Ivy League schools in two decades.

Yale's financial aid budget for the current academic year totals more than $112 million, including $30 million for undergraduate financial aid.

In addition to improvements in undergraduate financial aid, Yale has been steadily increasing financial aid for doctoral students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. All doctoral students receive financial aid packages that cover the full cost of tuition during the four years that tuition is charged and provide them with at least four years of stipend support that covers a substantial portion of their living expenses.

The minimum nine-month stipend for 2001-2002 will be $13,700, up from $11,500 in the current academic year. Many graduate students receive higher stipends than the minimum.

The standard financial aid package for students registered in doctoral programs at Yale currently consists of:

* Tuition Fellowships covering tuition for the four years tuition is charged.

* Comprehensive health care in an individual plan at no charge to the student, and family plans at half-cost to the student.

* A guarantee, in most programs, of five years of stipend or fellowship support with the expectation that students will teach part-time in no more than four semesters.

* A Summer Study Fellowship in one of the first two summers of study for students in the humanities and social sciences.

As a result of its financial aid policies, Yale's commitment to each Ph.D. student exceeds $158,000.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

New Berkeley College master named

Bollingen Prize in Poetry honors 'anguish and humor' of Louise Glück's 'Vita Nova'

Yale Glee Club salutes music's power to mold lifelong friendships

Architect Cesar Pelli to design Yale's new engineering building

Comedian Carlin shares tales from his 'very lucky' life

Yale College term bill is set at $34,030

Bentley Layton appointed to Goff chair in religious studies

Race is not a factor in the delivery of mental health services . . .

Graduate students give voice to their poetry in colloquium

Valesio group is 'an ongoing poem'

Candid close-ups are Yale police officer's hobby

Pioneering nurses will be honored at center's annual convocation

Grant to support field research by F&ES students

YUHS names new medical director

Pianist (and trained chemist) makes his faculty debut

Shakespeare-inspired music will be featured in concert by Yale Jazz Ensemble

Campus Notes