Due to high inflation, Southern Adventist University will increase tuition, the general education fee, residence hall rent and meal plans — called the “Big Four” by administrators — for the 2023-2024 academic year by nearly 6%, according to Doug Frood, vice president for Financial Administration.
For the academic year, tuition will equal $24,350, the general education fee $940, residence hall rent $5,140 and the bronze meal plan $2,920. Southern’s website lists the estimated food allowance for residence hall students as $3,360, and using that number, lists $33,790 as a residence hall student’s sample yearly cost. For community students, that cost is $25,290. The website adds, “With a full load, plan for books and supplies to cost an estimated $1,100.”
“It’s been tough. I can tell you personally, there was not a single person in the room when we were making the discussion to set tuition for next year that went out of that happy,” Frood said in an interview with the Accent. “ … We are trying, and we are trying our best. Let’s hope inflation comes back to something more reasonable.”
Frood addressed a question that was asked at Student Association’s Town Hall on Thursday, which read: “Tuition and general fees etc. increase each year by 6%, but our academic scholarships do not. Why do our academic scholarships not increase the same amount?”
At the Town Hall, President Ken Shaw said tuition does not increase by 6% each year, which Frood affirmed in the interview, and the scholarships students receive from Southern are based on the university’s endowment, which fluctuates with the financial market.
“If the market doesn’t increase … we’re not going to see an increase in that amount that we can provide students,” Shaw said. “So, this year — anybody who’s been following the market — we’ve actually lost several million dollars in our endowment, so what we’re able to actually provide students is going to be less next year as a result of the endowment.”
During the interview with the Accent, Frood called the conversation about student aid increasing with tuition “challenging.” He clarified that student aid is not entirely dependent on the endowment, as it currently contributes close to $4 million to the amount Southern gives in scholarships, which exceeds $20 million.
He said merit scholarships will not be changing in amount anytime soon, partly because a rising number of students are qualifying for them. This trend has occurred in several other private schools as well.
“There was not a single person in the room when we were making the discussion to set tuition for next year that went out of that happy.”
However, need-based scholarships will rise at the same rate as tuition in the same way Southern has increased them in the past.
According to Frood, tuition rose 1.9% in the 2018-2019 academic year, 2.6% in 2019-2020, 1.9% in 2020-2021, 1.2% in 2021-2022 and 3% this academic year.
“[These increases] are somewhat typical of higher-ed as a whole,” Frood said. “We’ve always been accused of raising tuition faster than inflation, [but] the industry as a whole has essentially been south of inflation for at least five to six years now. And, of course, as much as we’re raising at 6% — and people gasp at that — but technically, based on our current inflation number, that’s still a little less.”
The United States Labor Department reported the annual inflation rate as 7.7% for the 12 months that ended October, according to U.S. Inflation Calculator. The next update is scheduled to release on the morning of Dec. 13.
“It’s cold comfort; I get it. But we are trying desperately,” Frood continued. “As I said to my business students, inflation is a killer when it comes to higher ed and healthcare. It just wreaks havoc.”
In an opinion article about the relationship between the healthcare and higher education industries and inflation, The Hill contributor Vivekanand Jayakumar wrote: “Since higher education and health care need to employ highly educated professionals (who could otherwise be employed in alternate high-productivity sectors), they still need to offer high pay to attract talent.”
Frood said the driving force behind tuition changes is alterations in what the university pays its workers, and with periods of high inflation come necessary increases in compensation.
“As I said to my business students, inflation is a killer when it comes to higher ed and healthcare. It just wreaks havoc.”
The university has been influenced in other ways by the current inflationary environment, with expenses rising in areas such as electricity and gas. In June, the Tennessee Valley Authority went from charging 9.1 to 11.2 cents per kilowatt, about a 20% increase, said Frood.
“It’s $2 million to electrify this campus — that’s a ballpark estimate. So, a 20% move is $400,000,” Frood said. “That’s like three quarters of a percentage point from a tuition raise standpoint, just that by itself.”
Adding the raised expense in gas to the raised expense of electricity already equals a 1% increase in tuition. The dining hall has been forced to increase prices as well.
Another question that arose at the Town Hall concerned student wages and why they have not risen. Frood said administrators have been discussing the idea but added that increasing student wages would increase tuition as well. He later explained in the interview that some administrators, including him, are pushing to increase student wages, and current discussions are centered around a raise of $2 per hour.
The university does not want to raise tuition and is working hard to increase its endowment, acquire more funding and become more efficient, stressed Frood.
“If somebody were to come to me to say, ‘Well, it’s not fast enough.’ Well, just know it’s not fast enough for me either,” he said. “But, we’re trying. It weighs on me every day.”
