For the first time in a quarter century, John Brown University’s tuition increase has reached its lowest rate of 3.36 percent.
The University’s board of trustees has approved the new combined price for undergraduate tuition, fees, room and board for the 2015-16 academic year.
Don Crandall, vice president for enrollment management, said, “JBU is a leader in initiatives to keep Christian higher education affordable. We are consistently rated a best value in the South by US News and World Report.”
He added, “We work hard to keep our tuition affordable for our students and are proud to report that JBU is priced lower than 73 percent of our peer institutions across the country.”
John Brown awarded $11.4 million in institutional scholarships for the 2014-15 academic year and is increasing the institutional student aid budget for 2015-16 by $300,000. Additionally, JBU awarded 543 scholarships worth a combined $1.96 million annually from endowed scholarship funds.
The JBU Scholarship Fund made the total scholarship aid available to students over $13.36 million in 2014-15 with the expectation to award more in the coming academic year.
“We have incredible institutional support at JBU. Through new financial aid that we have allocated for the 2015-16 academic year, we estimate the average effective impact of the increase will be about 2.5 percent,” said Kimberly Hadley, vice president for finance and administration.
The JBU Advancement team is working to increase the endowment and sustain annual scholarship funding through the initiatives of the university’s recently announced Campaign for the Next Century. JBU plans to allocate as much as $60 million of the $125 million campaign goal to student scholarships.
“Upholding our long-standing tradition of helping students attend college despite financial challenges is extremely important to us at JBU,” said Dr. Jim Krall, vice president for advancement.
“Because of the many generous supporters who give to scholarship endowments and to annual scholarships at JBU, we are confident that we can keep JBU’s excellent education accessible to our students in the future,” Krall said.