Sioux City Journal, IA
04-07-07
Freeze will lock in Northwestern tuition for four years
By Bret Hayworth Journal staff writer
ORANGE CITY, Iowa -- Carrie Muilenburg, Ashley Wright, Nathan Schipper and
Noah Adams were planning to go to Northwestern College in Orange City
anyway, but the choice got sweeter when the four learned a tuition freeze will be
enacted in 2007-08.
Muilenburg, Wright, Schipper and Adams, all Maurice Orange City/Floyd Valley
seniors, had settled on attending Northwestern, a private liberal arts college
affiliated with the Reformed Church in America. Now, with the tuition guarantee,
they and every other entering freshman will pay the same tuition amount for four
years, and the residence hall fee and the meal plan cost will also be locked in for
four years.
From 2007 on forward, Northwestern will establish a price for tuition, room and
board for each incoming class, and the amount charged will remain in effect for
the classmates over those four years.
Northwestern College financial aid office director Gerry Korver said the tuition
freeze "doesn't save anybody any money, it is going to cost over four or five
years what they would have paid." But Korver said Northwestern officials expect
the tuition-locking program will positively affect student retention, as parents and
students like knowing their financial requirements for the duration of getting a
degree. The guarantee can be bumped up to five years for students not able to
graduate in four years.
"So far people have been pretty enthused," Korver said.
Northwestern officials began seriously studying the tuition guarantee in spring
2006, he said, and talked with about 100 families on the option. Korver said the
college is trying to be responsive "to what parents are asking -- 'How do I get
away from this jump every year?'"
Announced in December 2006, the program isn't available to current
Northwestern College students. That's not lamented by Northwestern junior
Krista Blankespoor of Sheldon, Iowa, who has a roommate with a younger sister
who will be an incoming freshman with the new freeze.
Blankespoor recounted, "Her family likes it, because then they know how much is
expected of them every year."
MOC/FV senior Wright said the tuition freeze makes "a lot of financial sense,"
and Adams said the guarantee "is beneficial for your planning." Adams said he's
hearing the 2007-08 tuition under the new program will come in around $27,000.
Muilenburg said "it is nice having a guarantee," and reported an older sister Lisa,
a Northwestern senior, "thinks it would have been nice" to have been
implemented earlier.
MOC/FV guidance counselor Donna Hoadley, who works with a lot of colleges as
MOC/FV students mull the direction for their post-high school lives, said she's
never heard of a tuition guarantee like that of Northwestern. Korver said "not very
many" colleges nationally have a four-year tuition freeze, and "we are the only
college we know doing it for tuition, room and board. We are pioneers in this...
This is an entirely different animal."
The three Iowa public universities don't have a tuition guarantee, although it was
discussed in 2003 (see adjacent story). In a Sioux City stop Monday, Iowa State
University president Gregory Geoffrey said for public universities, "tuition
freezes are alright, if the state appropriations make up for the increase in costs
that are occurring, that the frozen tuition wouldn't cover."
Geoffrey said tuition guarantee programs generally result in tuition going "up
quite a bit" in the first year, so that costs can be covered for the next four years.
That's the case at Northwestern, Korver said, as "they will pay a little bit more
than they would in Year One, but then it is guaranteed" for the following years.
The precise amount of the 2007-2011 tuition will be set in May, once the
freshman class size is determined, but it likely will be near $28,000, he said.
Korver said the tuition of other Iowa private colleges will likely keep increasing,
and in about four years will be near $31,000 annually, while "we'll be at $27,950.
By year three and four, it will be a pretty good deal by comparison."
Northwestern junior Jessica Jenkins of Broken Bow, Neb., said she knows some
Northwestern students who have dropped out of the college because of what
they saw as sizable tuition increases. She said the tuition has risen from about
$21,000 her freshman year to about $26,000 now, which she said creates
"sticker shock" for some students.
Of the tuition freeze, Jenkins said, "I see it as a good thing," and likely to help
retain students. About 350 freshmen enroll annually at Northwestern, with the
range lately having run from 345 to 375 students, Korver said.
Bret Hayworth may be reached at (712) 293.4203 or
brethayworth@siouxcityjournal.com