The College’s Board of Trustees voted Saturday to increase tuition, room, board and mandatory fees by 2.9 percent to $61,947 for the 2014-15 academic year, the lowest percentage increase since 1977, and elected Bill Helman ’80 as the Board’s next chair. At the meeting, trustees expressed unanimous support for a proposal to strengthen sanctions for students found guilty of sexual assault.
The Geisel School of Medicine and Tuck School of Business will see tuition increases of 5 and 4.5 percent, respectively.
College President Phil Hanlon said he tasked administrators at the College, Thayer School of Engineering, Tuck and Geisel to identify 1.5 percent of their budgets that could be reallocated, facilitating the smaller tuition increases.
During Saturday’s meeting at the Hanover Inn, the trustees also voted to raise the amount of financial aid offered for fiscal year 2015 to $85 million, a 5.9 percent increase from the projected $80 million in aid awarded in the current fiscal year.
Undergraduate tuition for 2014-15 will be $46,763, an increase of $1,319 over the current rate. Hanlon announced his intention to keep the College’s tuition rates flat with inflation at a general faculty meeting last November.
The Board supported a proposal by Hanlon and Dean of the College Charlotte Johnson to revise the College's disciplinary system for sexual assault committed by students. An external investigator will determine responsibility for sexual assault.
Students found responsible of rape accomplished by "force, threat or purposeful incapacitation," or motivated by bias, as well as students who have previously been found responsible of sexual assault, will be expelled under the new policy, which the College aims to enact by summer 2014. In other cases of rape, there will be a "strong presumption" in favor of expulsion.
Community members can comment on and submit suggestions to the proposal online.
Helman, whose term begins June 2014, will succeed Stephen Mandel ’78, who has served as chair since 2010. Mandel’s term was extended beyond the ordinary three-year limit due to administrative turnover.
Helman has been a trustee since 2009 and spearheaded the presidential search committee that selected Hanlon to succeed former College President Jim Yong Kim. A managing partner at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners, Helman has chaired the Board’s Investment Committee, which helps manage Dartmouth’s endowment, since 2010. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
At the College, Helman majored in history and minored in economics. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1984.
Both Hanlon and Mandel said they are confident in Helman’s ability to lead the Board.
At Saturday's meeting, the Board approved Dartmouth’s operating budget of $1 billion for the 2015 fiscal year, and a capital budget of $54 million, which will be used to fund projects like replacing Memorial Field's west stands and a renovation of Alumni Gym.
The Board meeting included a presentation on residential life. Led by interim Provost Martin Wybourne, students and faculty also gave presentations about classroom technology.
The Board, Hanlon said, did not discuss at length the Center for Community Action and Prevention, the student-authored “Freedom Budget” or theletter that Divest Dartmouth presented to Hanlon and the Board on March 4.
“I think the Board very much concurs with the spirit of [the ‘Freedom Budget’],” Mandel said. “There are real issues that need discussing and attention, and we think have been doing that and will continue to do that.”
All but two trustees attended the meeting, John Replogle ’88 and Gail Boudreaux ’82.
Princeton University will increase its total cost for the 2014-15 year by 4.1 percent to $58,965, while the University of Pennsylvania will increase its tuition and fees by 3.9 percent to $61,132, exceeding $60,000 for the first time. Brown University’s total undergraduate cost will rise 3.8 percent to $59,428.
With a sticker price of $63,282, Dartmouth was the second-most expensive Ivy League university in the 2013-14 academic year, behind Columbia University.