The College’s comprehensive fee for the 2024-25 academic year will be an all-time high of $85,820 — a figure that includes tuition, housing, and personal expenses — marking a 5.7-percent increase from the 2023-24 fee. The College will continue to meet 100 percent of students’ demonstrated financial need and adjust financial aid awards to account for the fee increase, Vice President for Finance and Operations Mike Wagner and Provost Eiko Maruko Siniawer ’97 wrote in a joint statement to the Record.
In the 2023-24 academic year, the College increased the comprehensive fee by five percent from the 2022-23 fee. That adjustment was primarily due to inflation, the Record reported in March 2023 — that year, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by six percent. This year, the CPI increased by 3.5 percent as of March 2024, though Siniawar and Wagner did not attribute this year’s increase to inflation.
“We consider a number of factors in setting the comprehensive fee, including trends in the costs of providing exceptional educational opportunities as well as co-curricular experiences, investing in Williams faculty and staff, funding new initiatives, and maintaining and improving campus facilities,” Wagner and Siniawer wrote. “We also take into account trends in the College’s other sources of operating revenue and how our comprehensive fee compares to those of peer institutions.”
In recent weeks, a number of private colleges have announced 2024-25 comprehensive fees that exceed the $90,000 mark, including Tufts University at $92,167 and Wellesley College at $92,060. “[The College’s fee] is on the lower end compared to almost forty of our peer institutions,” Wagner and Siniawer noted.
Though some NESCAC schools have yet to release their 2024-25 comprehensive fees, the College’s comprehensive fee was the lowest in the conference for the 2023-24 academic year.
According to Wagner and Siniawer, the expenditure for a family receiving aid has actually dropped over the last two decades. “The real, average net price — what students on average actually pay for a Williams education, adjusted for inflation — is lower today than it was twenty years ago,” they wrote. According to Wagner and Siniawer, the average net price for this academic year is about $41,100, compared to $42,700 for the 2003-04 academic year.
“We try to limit annual increases while prudently investing in the people and programs that enable you to pursue an education of lifelong value, well beyond the sticker price,” Wagner wrote to students in his email announcing the 2024-25 comprehensive fee. “Regular increases ensure that Williams can continue to offer students extraordinary opportunities, next year and beyond.”
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the 2024-25 comprehensive fee increased by 5%. It increased by 5.7%. This article was updated on Apr. 17 at 2:30pm to correct this error.
