Minneapolis College of Art and Design to freeze tuition

The size of a tuition increase could determine whether Elizabeth Dombeck will need to take a year off from studying at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD).

Luckily for her, the college's increase will be a big round number: zero.

MCAD is freezing tuition next school year. While still unusual, the move is becoming increasingly common as colleges acknowledge the recession's effect on family finances and increasing skepticism over the cost of college.

"I'm very aware that it's a challenge for people to come here," said MCAD President Jay Coogan. "The most meaningful decision we could make to put students first was to hold tuition."

Tuition at the arts college is -- and will be -- $29,500 a year. Add housing, fees and materials, and the total annual cost is $40,810.

Last year, an unprecedented number of private, nonprofit colleges froze their tuition, according to the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. Although it's still early in the budgeting cycle, a few colleges have already announced freezes for next year. "We expect to see that number grow over the coming months," said Tony Pals, the association's director of public information.

While Princeton's tuition freeze for 2008-09 came with a hefty bump in room and board, MCAD's housing will increase just 2.5 percent. It won't raise fees one cent. It also will offer 4 percent more financial aid.

Things are coming together for Dombeck, 21, just as they threaten to fall apart.

The junior enjoys MCAD, is excited about majoring in illustration and recently has witnessed her "personal thoughts and feelings coming out in my artwork," she said. "It's kind of amazing."

But Dombeck, who is from Milwaukee, is deep in debt from student loans and just got notice that she is close to hitting a limit on how much she can borrow.

"I might have to go back home or something," she said, "work two jobs, save up."

Most students at MCAD, as at many other art and design schools, leave with significant debt. The average loan debt of those who graduated in 2008 was $42,110.

Today's high school seniors and their families are even more frugal and practical when choosing a college or university than those before them, said John Lawlor of the Lawlor Group, an Eden Prairie-based company that specializes in marketing colleges and universities.

"The symbolism of putting on a tuition freeze will catch some attention in a marketplace that's sensitive to the cost of higher education," he said.

Beyond the buzz

Coogan, who began as president less than a year ago, says the freeze is much more than a gimmick: It's part of a strategy to increase revenue while containing costs. (Although the college won't get more money from tuition next year, it will provide its faculty and staff with a cost-of-living pay increase.)

He wants to increase the number of people who participate in continuing education at MCAD, which sits next to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in south Minneapolis. It could expand online courses, programs for high school students and one-night events focused on a particular art form, such as printmaking.

The college also is working to increase its private giving, so it can provide more students with bigger scholarships.

Lindsay Turner came to MCAD from California. There, as an eighth-grader, she was wandering around a huge comic book and arts convention when someone handed her a flier for MCAD. It somehow stayed in her backpack until 10th grade, when she began looking at colleges.

She knew she wanted to attend an arts college but also knew "they were all really, really expensive."

When she received the letter from MCAD saying she'd been offered a $10,000-a-year scholarship, she "just started crying," she said. That scholarship is one big reason the freshman is now falling in love with Minneapolis.