Undergraduate tuition at the University of Denver is going up…again. In an email Monday morning, Provost Mary Clark informed DU students that undergraduate tuition before financial aid would increase by $57 per tuition hour, or 3.5%, for the 2024-2025 academic year. 

For students registering for three quarters at 16 credit hours each, that translates to a $2,736 increase for the year. While DU adjusts merit aid scholarships each year for incoming students, merit aid packages for returning students reflect the amount they were awarded when they were first accepted at DU. For example, first-years awarded the Chancellor’s Scholarship now receive $33,000 per year while fourth-years receiving the same scholarship only receive $26,000 per year.

Clark went on to explain that the Board of Trustees considered “costs associated with providing top-quality learning experiences for our students, while making every effort to control costs of operation” when setting tuition. 

Annual tuition raises are commonplace at public and private institutions in the U.S. to account for inflation; however, there is little consensus on why tuition continues to increase at private universities even when inflation is taken into account. Last year, DU administrators and faculty said that tuition increases correspond with staff and faculty pay raises.

Fifteen students in DU’s Community Commons and the Sie Complex on Thursday, Oct. 12 shared their thoughts on rising tuition with the Clarion. Here’s what they had to say.

What was your initial reaction?

“Typical.” – Victoria Bennet, second-year

“That my dad was gonna be mad at me.” – Chloe Schwartz, second-year

“That’s interesting because tuition, as you probably already know, is very high at DU … but also it is understandable because for every school I’ve went to, there always has been a tuition increase.” – Elee Vigil, second-year transfer student

“We already know that it’s 80k, so to know that it’s getting even more…it’s surprising.” – Jahaira Martinez, first-year

“I feel like they did a good job at making it seem like it wasn’t that much of an increase.” – Hailey Archuleta, first-year

“I thought it was $57 per class, so I was like $200 per year? Like, that’s fine.” – Katelyn Bond, first-year. Bond has since realized that this is a $2,736 bump, not a $200 bump.

“It doesn’t super affect me that much, but still I know it affects a lot of kids here. Especially the way that DU tends to spend money frivolously…I feel like they have the tendency to spend money on advertisable things instead of pragmatic things.” – Gavin Hood, third-year

“At this point, I expect a yearly email.” – Caleb Smith, second-year

“Screw DU for that, for real I was getting worried about how I’m gonna pay next year. My first reaction physically was to post that on fizz.” – Diego Jimenez, second-year

If you have scholarships from DU, have they been adjusted as well? How do you feel about that?

“I feel like it’s unfair…if you’re gonna bring students to this school and say ‘we’re gonna offer you an academic scholarship,’ I think that should match the same percentage as tuition increases.” – Bond

“I know a lot of students are struggling financially even with their scholarships, so then to have their scholarships not increase along with tuition…sucks.” – Jordan Talbott, first-year

“That is the main worry: is my academic scholarship going to match? That’s the reason I came here in the first place.” – Smith

“They care more about getting students here than keeping them here.” – Traven Hammond, second-year

“Not even the merit aid scholarships but the housing grants…housing people in Towers and Halls is bad enough, especially when you have new buildings like Dimond. But to continuously house people in Hilltop when they said they were going to demolish the building?” – Isabelle Zelaya, fourth-year

What do you want to see the tuition raise go towards?

“Fixing some dorms, hiring more people for DEI, maybe better food but not 3D printed food.” – Schwartz

“More equality amongst living conditions on campus.” – Smith

“More equitable distribution across the colleges. I feel like it’s centralized in Lamont and Daniels.” – Hood

“Better Wi-Fi, better facilities at Sodexo, not paying for laundry…better scholarships. Just not administrators getting pay increases.” – Jimenez

“Can we focus for a minute on making Sturm not look so disgusting?” – Hammond

“Teacher pay.” – Bennett

“We don’t need that f*cking robot in the dining hall.” – Zelaya

“If you’re gonna have a mountain campus, have more accessible options to get up there. Use that money to make it easier for students to be up there and stay up there.” – Brinna Faughan, fourth-year

“Teacher pay, getting more teachers, especially for the smaller departments, and student support. I’m not talking the robot burgers, I’m not talking the sh*tty, sh*tty therapy services…I want better scholarships for the school.” – McCart

If you could sit down with the Provost and the Chancellor today, what would you say or ask?

“It feels like we’re being jipped. They promised us scholarships that would help us financially and this feels like a ‘nevermind.’” – Talbott

“Make sure if you’re going to increase tuition, that it’s intentional and that it’s going towards a greater purpose to your students.” – Vigil

“I saw how they were getting $16 million extra dollars from the 3.5% tuition increase…I’d like to see exactly where they’re going to put that.” – Hunter Morris, first-year

“When you sent out that email, you didn’t give any explanation of where the money is going … it’s like, ‘we’ve got new students, we have to keep all these facilities open and improve the DU experience,’ but I want to see a report.” – Hammond

“How dare you?” – Jimenez

“I’d love to see some more sustainability on campus, whether that’s through more solar panels…less water use, actually composting, actually recycling. Doing those little things that people think DU does.” – Faughan

“More active listening to student feedback would be nice. I feel like Chancellor Haefner is a little focused on pleasing the board of trustees, which I get, but…it’s a school. In particular, there hasn’t been a whole lot of acknowledgement of the No More Pios movement.” – Hood

“On a scale of being as inclusive and diverse and prioritizing equity as we can be, where they think we are on that scale now and where they would like to be.” – Zelaya

“Doesn’t [the board] also invest a lot of their money? In oil companies maybe? 24 million?” – Bennett

“I get that inflation is bad and that everyone is struggling, but why do you feel the need to put it on the students to support that when the school is clearly doing fine financially? And if it’s not … why do you keep pumping funds into sh*tty Sodexo, into robot burgers, into stuff that your students don’t need, want or ask for?” – McCart