Tuition Set to Increase by 4.4% in Second Largest Hike of The Last Decade

Undergraduate tuition is set to increase 4.4% for the upcoming 2025-26 academic year, adding an additional $2,300 to the annual cost of a Loyola education, which now totals $54,530. 

The increase is higher than the 3.9% raise the university implemented for the current academic year, but is comparable to the 4.5% increase put in place for the 2023-24 academic year, The Phoenix previously reported. At 4.4%, this year’s hike is among the largest increases of the past decade.

The price of meal plans will also undergo an increase between 4 and 4.4%, while room and board fees will be upped by an average of 3.5%. The additional fees were announced Jan. 22 after the university’s Board of Trustees officially approved the operating budget for the upcoming academic year. 

With this increase, the university fulfilled their ongoing pledge to keep annual tuition increases from straying 1.5% above the average annual increase of 3.8% over the last 10 years. 

Wayne Magdzairz, Loyola’s senior vice president, chief financial officer and chief business officer, said the university is committed to ensuring tuition dollars are used carefully and strategically.

“Especially now more than ever, we really are engaged with not only the finance committee but also the full board of trustees in ensuring every tuition dollar that we collect is going in the right place,” Magdziarz said. “The board holds us to high standards in making sure that our operations are, if you will, lean and mean and that we’re investing those dollars in the right spot.”

Magdziarz said the added tuition costs will allow Loyola to stay competitive in compensation levels for faculty and staff and in the student-facing classroom experience. 

Salaries for faculty and staff are the university’s largest expense. Magdziarz said Loyola has been successful in staying competitive in this realm despite persistent inflation over the last few years. 

The funds raised from tuition also allow the university to ensure balanced budgets and the maintenance of a strong financial footing. 

The 2025-26 budget will provide $19 million in additional university-funded financial aid, bringing the total amount of student financial assistance provided by Loyola to $322.8 million. The university will also be able to offer an additional $25 million in unfunded scholarships — which are paid for with funds from the university’s endowment and philanthropic gifts, according to Magdziarz. 

Magdziarz said he understands how annual tuition increases can be a source of struggle for students and their families. He said he encourages any student whose family or personal circumstances may have changed and is struggling financially to reach out to the financial aid office to see what the university can do to help.

“Students, as you know, leave Loyola for academic reasons, or they leave Loyola because it’s just not a good fit for them,” Magdziarz said. “But one thing we do is make sure that we do everything we can to make sure that a student who wants to come here, who wants to stay here and who wants to graduate can do that without having to undergo unnecessarily strenuous financial struggles.” 

Magdziarz said the university has taken several actions to ensure continued financial stability in an effort to keep tuition increases as low as possible.

These include a continued effort to pay off the debt the university holds and continuing to grow the size of the endowment — an investment portfolio funded by gifts which universities use to support operations — to ensure Loyola can continue to provide scholarship and financial aid support. 

He said so far Loyola hasn’t felt the effects of the impending enrollment cliff facing universities across the country, in which there’ll be a lower number of U.S. students entering college due to a decline in birth rates following the Great Recession. 

As of yet, Magdziarz said Loyola hasn’t hasn’t seen much erosion in undergraduate enrollment and has continued to see incoming classes reach their target levels. He said it’s important the university stays competitive in financial aid and in brand to counteract challenges facing the broader landscape of higher education. 

One of the ways Loyola hopes to maintain its strong brand and student experience, according to Magdziarz, is through capital investment and the ongoing process surrounding the Campus Plan — the university’s guide for the next decade of development. 

He said investments in new academic buildings, student spaces and residence halls will help Loyola stay competitive in recruiting new students. Magdziarz said these construction projects are not funded through tuition dollars, instead the university intends to pay for new developments with philanthropic funds, borrowing and the university’s depreciation pool — a tax deduction which allows property owners to recover the cost of the property to pay for upkeep, according to the Internal Revenue Service.