The College's Board of Trustees raised tuition 6.45 percent, up $1,260 to $20,805, at its winter meeting this weekend.
The total cost of attending Dartmouth for the academic year 1995-96, including tuition, fees and room and board, will increase $1,319 to $27,039, or 5.13 percent.
In setting the increase, Associate College Treasurer Win Johnson said the Trustees considered such things as administration and faculty compensation, the maintenance of the College's need-blind financial aid policies and matters related to the College's physical plant.
"They're concerned about faculty compensation and also administration compensation. There was some interest in keeping those levels up and that would have been difficult without this increase," he said.
Johnson said the low increase in the overall fees resulted partially from the fact that the Declining Balance Account will no longer appear on billing accounts because of the new meal plan announced last week.
The tuition increase represents a drop in the rate of increase from last year, when tuition rose by 6.94 percent, from $18,270 to $19,650.
Last year was the first time the percentage rise in tuition increased since 1989, when the Board announced it wanted to slow the rate of tuition increases. The annual growth rates of the total cost of attending the College has remained within the range of 5.5 percent and 6.2 percent since 1989.
College Spokesman Alex Huppe called the increase prudent and economical, "in the fact that this is clearly enough so that we can balance our budget and yet it's kept as low as we could."
In 1989, the Trustees said they wanted to lower the rate of tuition increase in each successive year and to keep the rate closer to inflation, measured against the national price index for higher education.
"At that time the Trustees said you ought to decrease the rate of increase. The rate of increase for each year had to go down," College Vice President and Treasurer Lyn Hutton said.
The Trustees said they wanted to find other ways to balance the College's budget other than by increasing fees. The College's budget has been balanced for the last 15 years, Huppe said.
Tuition raises have shown a marked increase since 1965, reaching a peak between 1980 and 1985, when the average annual rise reached 12.2 percent.
In 1987, an 8.5-percent tuition increase made Dartmouth the most expensive college in the Ivy League, a position it shared with Yale University.
But Dartmouth's tuition rises lowered each year since the Trustee's 1989 announcement until last year. Dartmouth's tuition is now in the middle of the Ivy League.
"For the last four or five years we have tried to keep the rate of growth down. That forces a higher degree of budget discipline," Johnson said.
"Last year, facing significant budget issues caused the Trustees to provide for a bigger increase than they would have liked," he said.
Hutton said the Treasurer's office asked the Trustees last year to remove their policy of successively downgrading the tuition rises. Hutton said she did so because other factors had to be considered in determining tuition, such as the quality of the product Dartmouth offers to students.
"What's the rationale for being at the bottom, given what we offer?" Hutton said.
Tuition at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering is the same as undergraduate tuition.
The Amos Tuck School of Business Administration will increase six percent to $22,500.
Tuition at the Dartmouth Medical school will go up two percent to $22,806.
