Tuition below national average
Meghan Youker

Students beware: Administrators say TCU has room to increase tuition.

“We are providing an above-average education for a below-average price,” said Carol Campbell, vice chancellor for business and administration.

The College Board, a national nonprofit association that provides information about colleges to students and their parents, estimates the average tuition and fees for four-year private universities to be $19,710, compared with TCU’s cost of $17,590. This cost is about 10 percent under the national average.

“We suggest that TCU can be 10 to 20 percent over the national average,” Campbell said. “In ten years, TCU will be at, or above, the average.”

Leo Munson, associate vice chancellor for academic support, said TCU belongs in the group of private universities that are selective, comprehensive and competitive. TCU’s tuition can be compared to the tuition of universities in its peer group, he said.

“TCU is an anomaly from a private-school perspective,” Munson said. “Our tuition is significantly below the national average.”

University officials compare TCU and its tuition to schools such as Baylor University, Drake University, Northwestern University, Wake Forest University, Vanderbilt University, Southern Methodist University and the University of Notre Dame, among others. According to the their Web sites, the universities’ average tuition and fees is about $8,000 more than TCU.

The 2003 TCU Fact Book compares TCU to these universities and eight others in its “peer group.” The universities all received rankings higher than TCU’s No. 99 rank in U.S. News and World Report. For example, Duke University ranked No. 5 and SMU ranked No. 73.

Campbell said a large factor in the U.S. News and World Report rankings is a university’s financial status. Universities with higher tuition have greater means, she said.

“Most of these universities are better funded than TCU,” Campbell said. “And some ranking considerations rely on money entirely.”

According to the Fact Book, all of the universities in TCU’s peer group also graduate a greater percentage of students in four years, accept more freshmen in the top 10 percent of their high school classes and have students who scored higher on the SAT and ACT than TCU students.

Campbell admits many of the peer-group universities are fundamentally different institutions from TCU and many are more prominent.

“They are our aspiration group,” Campbell said. “Universities that we would like to be like.”

Campbell said there are not a large number of institutions similar to TCU. Therefore, cost comparisons are made between schools that compete with TCU for perspective students.

Dean of Admissions Ray Brown said TCU’s biggest competitors are the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, SMU and Baylor. The cost of tuition and fees at TCU is about three times the cost at Texas and Texas A&M, while the cost at Baylor is $1,000 more than TCU and SMU is about $5,000 more. These costs do not factor in financial aid, Brown said.

“It will be interesting to see how much TCU can pull the tuition rubber band before it snaps,” Brown said.