Full-time undergraduate tuition at Syracuse University will rise 3.9 percent in the 2017-18 academic year to $45,150, the university announced Thursday.

The average cost for full-time undergraduate students will increase 3.4 percent, which includes tuition, room and board and fees.

The 2017-18 university budget will increase some costs for students, but also will increase SU’s financial aid commitment and graduate assistant stipends, according to an SU News release.

At Monday’s Student Association meeting, SA President Eric Evangelista announced these changes and said they were due to inflation, not additional programming.

Along with these cost increases, SU announced its largest-ever commitment to university-funded financial aid, per the release. For undergraduate students, $255 million in financial aid has been earmarked. This is a 4.8 percent increase in aid from the 2016-17 academic year, per the release.

The university has also put an increase in stipends for graduate student employees in the budget. It will support a 2.5 increase in the stipends, which the Graduate Student Organization has advocated for throughout the year.

In November, Chancellor Kent Syverud said at a University Senate meeting that the university had a generally balanced budget and that endowment had grown in 2016 by 1.6 percent.

He added at that meeting that the university needed to “raise a hell of a lot more” in fundraising than it currently does to compete with peer institutions and relieve pressures on faculty and academic units.

The university’s tuition — and therefore tuition revenues — have been consistently lower than peer institutions in recent years, Syverud also said at that meeting. However, room and board costs are typically higher.

Published on March 23, 2017 at 2:05 pm

Contact Delaney: dovanwey@syr.edu