% GRADUATING DEBT FREE Purdue WL Undergraduates
60%
56.1%
54.4%
52.2%
51.8%
50%
49.5%
48.2%
47.9%
47.9%
45.7%
45.6% 46.5%
NATIONAL TREND LINE
40%
2007 2008 2009
2017 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
30%
In fact, due to reductions in food and book costs, it will be less expensive to attend Purdue in 2019 and 2020 than it was in 2012. Put another way, if we had raised tuition and fees at the average national rate, resident students would pay $1,400 more annually. As a consequence, total student debt is down 37% (despite a significantly larger student body). That amounts to $232 million since 2012 that would otherwise have been borrowed and carried into adult life by graduating Boilermakers. Of 2017 graduates, 56% left debt-free. That’s the highest percentage in the 20 years for which we have comparable data. But a Purdue education is still not cheap, and still a major challenge for many low- and middle-income households. So our campus- wide commitment to affordability continues to produce ways to bring our costs further into financial reach.
faculty as a whole to determine. With more than 2,000 individuals giving grades, no policy anyone could enunciate would make much difference. The answer must be cultural, a collective expression of commitment to a somewhat different standard, to which at least a large majority of our faculty subscribes. It’s an important discussion; simply having it at all probably separates us from most other higher ed institutions. AFFORDABILITY AND ACCESS One area in which Purdue is plainly differentiated from its competition involves our philosophy about student cost. Our tuition freeze will enter its sixth consecutive year this fall; in May, the third of what will be at least four classes will graduate having never seen a tuition increase. And we recently announced that we were extending our freeze for a seventh year – extending to 2020.
32 May 2018
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