Letter to Parents

Dear Dickinson Parents and Students:

Dickinson's Board of Trustees recently approved the college’s fee schedule for the 2013-14 academic year. We are providing notice at this time to give you the opportunity to adjust your Tuition Payment Plan agreement or to make other financial arrangements in preparation for the upcoming year at Dickinson. The annual price for tuition, fees, room and board for the 2013-14 academic year will increase by 3.47 percent to $57,662, from the 2012-13 price of $55,729. The current student fee of $450, which supports student activities, health, counseling and wellness services on campus, is unchanged for the 2013-14 academic year. In our continuing effort to allow families to plan for subsequent years, it should be noted that the average increase to the comprehensive fee over the past four years has been 3.5 percent.

The decision to increase our tuition and fees during these difficult economic times was made after extensive discussion on campus with representative students, faculty, administrators, support staff and trustees. Our foremost objective with this tuition increase is to ensure that we continue to offer the highly competitive and personalized education you have come to expect at Dickinson. Key elements of a Dickinson education include:

a continuing commitment to hiring and retaining exceptional faculty dedicated to teaching and scholarship
ongoing support for student-faculty interaction in small classes and collaboration on independent study and research
an ongoing commitment to a useful liberal-arts curriculum that offers students enriched opportunities and remains current with new initiatives in such wide-ranging and rewarding fields as sustainability, health studies, security studies and dance
and continuing enhancement of advising and career services to ensure high placement rates for our students in excellent graduate and professional schools and in rewarding, meaningful jobs.

Commensurate with our commitment to access and affordability and our efforts to assist students and their families, the college will budget more than $40 million in financial aid for the 2013-14 academic year. This allocation of financial assistance reflects Dickinson’s ongoing commitment to access and affordability and our desire to help more students with financial need in the coming years. It is important to remember that each financial aid case is assessed individually and that all students may not receive an increase in their need-based financial aid.

As you begin to plan for the next academic year, I encourage you to visit the Student Accounts Web site at go.dickinson.edu/studentaccounts. This site provides information about available payment methods, tuition payment plans, loans and tax benefits for education. Members of the Student Accounts team are also ready to help you and can be reached at 717-245-1953 or stuaccts@dickinson.edu.

I thank you in advance for your commitment to Dickinson College.

Sincerely,

William G. Durden ’71
President