Ellie Park, Photography Editor

Yale’s term bill will reach $90,975 for the 2024-2025 academic year, surpassing $90,000 annually for the first time. 

Other private schools in New England — including Tufts University, Boston University and Wellesley College, as well as fellow Ivy League universities Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania — will also exceed the $90,000 mark for the first time in their histories next year. The schools are breaking this barrier as inflation continues to impact higher education more than other sectors. 

While the Consumer Price Index — a measure of price changes over time — rose 3.2 percent over the past year, the price of Yale’s term bill next year will mark a 3.9 percent increase from this year’s term bill.

“It’s a number I can’t even wrap my head around,” said Olga Emgushov, the mother of a Yale sophomore. “I just don’t understand why they have to raise the tuition.”

Emgushov said that she decided to shoulder Yale’s cost as a “gamble” that it would pay off for her daughter in the future. She said that her daughter was offered scholarships that would have made other universities free to attend; instead, however, she decided to pay for full tuition at Yale, where her daughter receives no financial aid. She said she thought that Yale’s prestige could prove important in a non-STEM career path like her daughter’s.

Emgushov said that she likes Yale as an institution and appreciates her daughter’s education, but that she feels “stuck” price-wise. Now that she’s decided to invest in a Yale education for her daughter, she said she sees no option other than to resign herself to pay no matter how much tuition increases.

“[I] already put this much money in, so I have to continue because the whole point was for her to get the ‘Yale’ after her name,” she said. “It is what it is. I feel like we’re stuck, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Emgushov said that she does not remember Yale notifying her about next year’s exact tuition increase and that she found out about it through a post on the News’ Instagram account.

Jeremiah Quinlan, dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid, said that Yale’s need-blind, loan-free financial aid policies have decreased expenses for “most Yale families,” despite the rising term bill.

“Between 2006 and 2020, the average price paid by the families of Yale students receiving financial aid fell 17% in nominal dollars and by 35% when adjusted for inflation,” Quinlan wrote in an email to the News.

However, for students on no financial aid, the price of Yale increased 74 percent in nominal dollars in that same 14-year period.

The Yale term bill, covering tuition, housing and meals, is set annually by the Yale Corporation. University President Peter Salovey, who is chair and a member of the Corporation, told the News in September that it is difficult to communicate to the public that Yale can be an affordable option for low-income students. He attributed this misconception to the fact that Ivy League universities and other member institutions of the Association of American Universities have robust financial aid programs whereas “many colleges and universities can’t provide those funds.”

Fifty-three percent of undergraduates receive financial aid from Yale this school year, with an average grant of over $63,000. The 2022-2023 undergraduate financial aid budget was $224 million.

Quinlan said that Yale’s financial aid increases at the same rate as the term bill.

“In the offices of undergraduate admissions and financial aid, our goals are to execute on our commitment to making a Yale College education affordable for all families, and to communicate that commitment with prospective students,” Quinlan wrote. “Yale’s extraordinary need-based financial aid policies, which meet 100% of need without requiring loans, and which always increase in lockstep with any increase in the term bill, make realizing these goals possible.”

Samad Hakani ’26, a photography editor at the News and an FGLI student ambassador, said that he does not think that Yale’s price hikes are justified.

“When you think of a price increase, there needs to be an associated … improvement in services,” he said. At Yale, “there’s definitely not an improvement in services anywhere close to what that sticker price is asking for.”

Hakani said he thinks that most “high-need” students are not deterred from applying to expensive universities like Yale because they assume that they will receive aid. He said many programs, such as QuestBridge, the Gates Scholarship and LEDA, conduct outreach to low-income students to spread the message that they might qualify for financial aid at schools they had previously discounted. On the other hand, lower-income students who may not qualify for these programs or full aid in college may be deterred from applying because they don’t think that they will receive enough aid.

Hakani said he has observed a bimodal financial composition of the student body where most students are either very high-income or very low-income, with a valley of incomes in between.

Jake Schramm ’25 said he thinks Yale could even double its current price and still fill its classes. At the end of the day, he said, Yale’s prestige is important enough in elite circles that those with the means will be willing to pay regardless of dramatic increases.

“They hiked up the prices on paper an absurd amount, but because they have a monopoly on the upper echelon of elite communities, they can get away with it,” Schramm said. At the end of the day, he said, “The key to professional slash social success is to ingratiate yourself into the friend world of the upper class of the upper class, and people are willing to pay for that.”

He said that he would judge whether Yale’s current pricing system is working by whether lower- and middle-income students are well-represented at the school.

However, he said that Yale charging a high price to some may actually help achieve this goal.

“If you’ve completely boxed out the less exceptional children of the titans of industry and other world leaders, you would also be disempowering the exceptional and less-privileged students who do get into Yale,” Schramm said. “A lot of Yale’s staying power stems from the fact that it’s filled with children of hyper-powerful people.”

Emgushov said that she’d like to see Yale expand its advising resources, which she feels have not been adequate, to justify the high price tag.

Yale offers a range of advising opportunities through a student’s college, major and department or thesis, but the advising system, particularly for first years, has long been a source of student discontent. A Yale College Council survey from fall 2020 found that 49 percent of students reported that their first-year advising experience was “unacceptable” or “lacking.”

“If they’re gonna keep raising the money, then I want them to help my daughter navigate this better,” she said. “I’m spending almost $90,000 to have her have the Yale name, and I feel like my other children [at less expensive schools] got a little better guidance.” 

Emgushov also said that she worries about the stress and pressure placed on her daughter to make the most out of her Yale education because it was such a large financial investment.

Bare tuition and fees will amount to $67,250 in the upcoming school year, with housing and food costs piling on an additional $11,300 and $8,600 respectively. Books, course materials, supplies, equipment, “personal expenses” and a “student activities fee” round out the record-high price tag.