Hiram College announces tuition freeze for 2010-2011 academic year

Hiram College officials today announced that they will not increase tuition for students entering Hiram for the 2010-2011 academic year. The zero percent increase is in addition to the institution’s Tuition Guarantee, which was established in 2004 and locks in a student’s tuition for four years.

Under Hiram’s Tuition Guarantee, each entering class paid a slightly higher rate for tuition than the previous class, and those costs were locked in for four years. With a zero percent increase for the entering class, traditional students coming to Hiram next fall will pay tuition costs equal to traditional students who entered Hiram in 2009, and those costs will be guaranteed not to increase.

“We believe this is the right thing to do for our prospective families,” said Hiram College President Thomas Chema. “In this economic environment, and with college costs nationally spiraling out of reach of many families, we’re fortunate to be in a position of strength and to be able to take an additional step to demonstrate our affordability. We are confident that we are appropriately priced as one of the most respected liberal arts institutions in the country and we do all that we can to make a Hiram education affordable and predictable for our students and their families.”

Hiram’s tuition is among the lowest in the North Coast Athletic Conference. Institutions in the conference include Wooster, Allegheny, Earlham, Wittenberg, Ohio Wesleyan, Denison, Wabash, Oberlin and Kenyon.

According to Chema, Hiram’s effort to control college costs for prospective families is one of the reasons the institution has achieved substantial growth in the past four years. Classes entering Hiram in that time period have been among the largest in the history of the institution. Additionally, the College has invested more than $45 million in campus improvements including construction of a new residence hall, dining center, townhouse apartment complex, nursing suite, and meeting house, home to the James A. Garfield Institute for Public Leadership.

“We believe keeping tuition costs at the 2009 level, and then guaranteeing those costs for four years as part of our Tuition Guarantee, will be an attractive option for students and their parents,” said Chema. “It is also a profound statement reflecting our historic commitment to affordability.”