I hope your fall semester is going well. I’d like to share some news with you about the cost of tuition at Drake. In Drake’s ongoing efforts to control costs and deliver value to our students, the annual tuition increase will be lower than in past years. Returning students will pay $36,112 for tuition next academic year, an increase of 3 percent, compared to a six-year average annual increase of 4.5 percent. Costs for 2017–2018 room (for those living on campus) and board will be released in early 2017.

I am sharing this news with you now because we are changing our approach to tuition pricing with the entering Fall 2017 class, and I want to avoid any confusion for our current students in this transition. Starting with the undergraduate students entering Drake in the Fall of 2017, we will move to fixed tuition pricing—what we’re calling the Drake Tuition Guarantee. That is, the tuition rate those students pay upon entering Drake will remain fixed for the duration of their Drake experience. As a current student, you will not be paying the Tuition Guarantee rate that undergraduate students entering in Fall 2017 will be paying. I encourage you to learn more about the Drake Tuition Guarantee and find answers to questions you might have at www.drake.edu/accounts/tuitionfees/returningstudents/

This lowering of the annual tuition percentage increase reflects our continuing efforts to be good stewards of the resources entrusted to us by you and your families. We have spent the last year finding ways to cut our operating expenses and to move existing resources into more high-impact activities—and we remain committed to doing both going forward. We saved $1.35 million in operating expenses during the just completed fiscal year, and are working on adding another $1.5 million to those savings in the current year. Our goal is to keep your annual tuition increases as low as possible, while continuing to make investments in new programs, needed facilities, and upgrades to technology.

The lower annual increase in tuition strengthens the value of your degree. A few of the many external reviews and assessments that affirm the value of a Drake education include:

• Drake is #1 in Iowa for median annual salary 10 years after entering college, and $20,000 above the national average.
• 98.9 percent of the graduates in our Class of 2015 had a job or graduate school acceptance within six months of graduation.
• The Economistmagazine ranked Drake 17^th out of 1,275 institutions of higher education (98^th percentile) for return on investment.
• The Brookings Institution placed Drake in the 97^th percentile nationwide among four-year colleges and universities regarding the mid-career earnings of graduates.
• Drake University is ranked 36th nationally on Kiplinger’s list of the “Best Values in Private Higher Education.”

I hope this information is helpful in explaining both the annual tuition increase for 2017–2018 and the new Tuition Guarantee. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Have a wonderful fall semester.

—President Marty Martin