The Cornell Board of Trustees met this past weekend and adopted budget guidance for the 2023-24 fiscal year, which will begin on July 1.
Overall, Cornell has a sophisticated mathematical model that takes key inputs such as financial aid needs, tuition levels, endowment payouts, average wage increases for faculty and non-academic staff, and assumed inflation for non-wage items. By iterating on those factors, Cornell gets a budget plan that it can bring to the Board for approval. Although the Trustees approve top level numbers, the Vice Presidents and College Deans then subdivide their allocations to specific departments. Months after the meeting, individual salaries will be set and financial aid packages built within the various allocations.
Outcomes of the Budget Meeting
Tuition Increases – The undergraduate tuition for the endowed colleges will be $65,024, an increase of $2,748 (4.4%).
For unaided undergraduate New York state residents attending statutory colleges – the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Human Ecology and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations – tuition will be $43,888, an increase of $1,930 (4.6%). Out-of-state tuition will be $65,024.
Tuition for the graduate and professional schools has not been announced.
Financial Aid – Many students do not pay the full cost of Cornell, but instead get financial aid. In addition to loans and work study, roughly half of Cornell’s undergraduates – around 7,437 students – receive Cornell scholarship grants, which do not need to be repaid. The 2023-24 budget includes a record $407 million in grant aid, continuing a trend that has seen institutional assistance rise nearly 159% in the last five years. This means that the final tuition levels represent a cross-subsidy because they include scholarship funds that are paid by tuition dollars in addition to current gifts and endowment payouts.
Student’s financial aid packages cover tuition, room and board, and other expenses. The 2022-23 total cost of attending the endowed colleges is $82,862. For 2023-24, tuition will go up $2,748, room (based on a double dorm room) will go up $1,136 and dining will increase $330. Cornell has not announced the total estimated cost of attending for 2023-24.
Through this year, each student on financial aid had a minimum contribution expected to be covered by a student’s summer earnings. A new program will allow that contribution to be waived, if the student is using the summer for an educational opportunity that does not produce income.
Endowment Payout – The Trustees set the 2023-24 payout rate at $2.65 per share, up from $2.53 for this year. Given the February 28, 2023 endowment size, this is an annual payout of 3.77% or $344,931,696 of income that will benefit the various designated Cornell activities. If actual earnings during the year prove to be higher than this amount, the excess will be automatically reinvested to help boost future endowment payouts. The budget payout is entirely within the Board’s discretion, but they base it upon a five year rolling average of the endowment earnings.
Although President Pollack has stated that the 2023-24 budget would provide wage increases to address the high inflation in the nation, no specifics were announced. However, while the Trustees were holding their meetings at the Cornell Vet School, graduate students were protesting outside the building over their wages and compensation.
The Cornell Board of Trustees meets four times per year, with its March and June meetings in Ithaca. Approving the budget framework is the highlight of the March meeting. The Cornell Review requested an opportunity to interview Kraig Kayser, the new Chairman of the Board during his visit to Ithaca, but he was not available to sit for an interview, and neither the Board nor Day Hall administrators made budget experts available to the press.
Correction: an earlier version of this story contained minor typographical errors. They have since been corrected.
