Tuition
Tuition monies are applied directly to the College’s strategic objectives, including recruitment and retention of top students and faculty, increases in institutional aid and scholarships, classroom improvements and upgrades in technology. Campus development, including the proposed Design Research Center and the Raymond Building, Student Housing and Power Plant at South Campus are built without tuition dollars.
Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 4:31 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Lisa:
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:38 pmWhy do scholarships for other students come out of the the general tuition monies? It doesn’t make sense do this since it increases everyone cost to attend the school to only benefit a few. Shouldn’t scholarships exclusivly come from money given to the school for that purpose? Of the Tuition monies how much goes to scholarship? (I would like this broken out at both a percentage and an actual dollar amount) How much scholarship money each year is provided by outside sources?
Thank you
Dylan:
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:32 amI want to attend Art Center, but I cannot justify the cost. The payscal for the industries that Art Center teaches do not earn enough on an average to make the cost of the school worth the money. The tuition is increasing at twice the rate of inflation for the last 8 years. This is almost 6% compounded yearly. The incomes we can expect do do correlate with what Art Center charges. The reputation is dwindling, the standards for acceptance are low and yet it is charging a premium.
My concern is that I simply cannot afford the first 5-10 years of the debt repayment once I graduate. The scholarship money available is pathetic and the fund raisers should focus on this fact before planning $50m on some building vanity project.
I really want to study with the best. Some of us are financing this and doing all on their own. I do not have a trust fund or a rich Uncle to pay my way. I would love to have a full ride (who wouldn’t?), but are willing to pay for my education if the return on my investment was sound.
The Board of trustees needs to do some serious reassessment of this school and it’s out of control costs.
Community Forum Moderator:
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:30 pmDylan –
We forwarded your comments to Kit Baron, Vice President of Admissions. Her response is below:
Dear Dylan-
The Admissions staff communicates closely with the Financial Aid office to work with students individually on their financial situations. If students meet the deadlines and follow the procedures to apply for scholarships, we can consider them for funding based on merit and financial need. We know that the cost of private education in the U.S. is high. Art Center’s tuition rates per semester are very similar to all other private colleges, and we know that students sacrifice a great deal to attend a private college.
The standards for admissions are not “low.” You would find that our standards are higher than any other art college in the country in terms of the degree of specialization we require prior to admission. Our ratio of acceptances is higher than other colleges simply because we already require a higher level of portfolio work to apply. We do not accept generic portfolios like all of the other art colleges who start their students in a foundation program.
Other art colleges sift through hundreds of general, high school-level portfolios, therefore appearing to be more selective. We actively discourage students from applying who are not yet ready for our level or degree of specialization, and as a result, we have an applicant pool that is smaller, but more qualified. We give students the chance to submit additional work when we feel there is potential, and feel that seeing more work might give that student an opportunity to be accepted. This happened during Spring Term here—no students were summarily admitted who had been previously declined, as was rumored.
We can never advise a student concerning their own comfort level with indebtedness. That is a very personal decision. We continue to feel that education is one of the most significant and worthwhile investments an individual can make in his or her life. We cannot guarantee employment or salary levels when a student graduates, but we know that an Art Center education continues to open doors, and continues to have meaning in the workplace.
I hope that you will contact me at 626.396.2322—I will be happy to look into your personal financial situation through conversation with the Financial Aid office. If we can help, we will.
Best regards—
Kit Baron
Vice President, Admissions
Community Forum Moderator:
June 25th, 2008 at 11:39 amHi Lisa —
We forwarded your comments to Tracy Tambascia, Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students, and her reply is below:
Lisa — It is a common practice for nonprofit, American colleges and universities to dedicate a portion of their total budget for scholarships to students. Colleges and universities differ in how they use these funds; some set aside a significant portion of these scholarship funds for students with financial need, while some may set aside a portion of the scholarships based on quality and merit. These types of scholarship typically help defray the cost of a private college education for students and families; without any scholarship, this kind of education would be unattainable for all but a very few. It is not uncommon for colleges and universities to devote 20 to 36 percent of their total budgets for scholarship. Please bear in mind that most private colleges and universities derive their total budgets from a variety of sources, including tuition, income from the endowment, annual gifts, governmental and private grants, etc.
At Art Center, $5 million is set aside from the budget for undergraduate scholarships in 2008; that represents about 11 percent of the budget. For graduate students, $1.1 million is set aside from the budget in 2008. An additional $1.2 million is available from donor scholarships and grants. These scholarships and grants are awarded to both new and continuing students each term.
— Tracy Tambascia
Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students
Joseph:
June 26th, 2008 at 4:22 pmWhat % of scholarship money is funded from tuition versus Benefactorial financing?
And what % of ACCD students are on scholarship at any given time (and how much is the mean amount)?
Rich Haluschak:
July 1st, 2008 at 11:31 amOn an annual basis about 2/3 of scholarships are funded from the college’s operating budget and 1/3 is funded by donor funds. Calculation of individual semesters’ tuition and scholarship amounts out of context of the annual operating budget and goals set by the Board Of Trustees does not provide full information or show the larger view of how the tuition and scholarships are determined.