With the ongoing costs of major renovations to the college houses, students have seen their room fees steadily rising each year. However, cost increases have remained small -- with a 4 percent rise this year -- mainly due to the manner in which the funds are used.
All of the revenue from room fees -- approximately $36 million per year -- goes to Housing and Conference Services. About one-third of these funds are used for facilities and maintenance charges, with another third used for utilities, insurance and licenses -- as well as for paying off debt from previous large-scale renovation projects. Other costs include security and funding for the College House System.
This year, the University took in about $39 million for housing, with $36 million coming from room fees and $3 million in external funding from the Housing Office.
Officials have been reluctant, however, to drastically raise the fees they have charged students for room and board over the last several years.
"Clearly [the increase] could have been 5 or 6 percent given the rate of increase that we're seeing in West Philadelphia apartments," University President Judith Rodin said. "But we're really trying to appreciate the needs of our students and keep it as low as possible and still do these things."
While increases have been put into place, they remain smaller than local real estate prices.
"We've raised [the room fee] more than we have the last couple of years to support some of the renovations," Rodin said. "We will continue to leave that increase in place, not reduce it again in the near-term future budgets in order to support both debt service and continued renovations."
Administrators have been able to avoid cost increases correlated with large-scale renovations by structuring payment to avoid a large one-time expense.
The University covers the cost of the renovations, which is then paid back over time. In addition, a portion of the renovation costs are offset through fundraising.
"To a very large extent, the University has been paying for these renovations," explained Bonnie Gibson, executive director of administrative affairs for the Provost's Office and acting executive director of budget and management analysis. "We've basically provided the cash to go forward with these renovations, and then we're repaying ourselves, so to speak, over a very long period of time."
"We've asked Housing and Conference Services to be very, very careful in the way that they spend money," Gibson said. "They get their revenue, and they're expected to live within their revenue."
Housing Director Douglas Berger explained how Housing pays for its annual costs.
"Basically, the goal of Housing is to be self-sufficient from the University, so basically Housing pays for all its own expenses."
