St. John’s price cut good for the school, and Santa Fe
St. John’s College, Santa Fe’s small liberal arts college with the rigorous, nonelective “Great Books” curriculum, has done something revolutionary — it’s cutting tuition, and not just by a little.
The school set in the mountains on Santa Fe’s east side is chopping tuition from $52,000 to $35,000, starting with the 2019-20 school year. And New Mexico residents who attend St. John’s in Santa Fe will receive a $10,000 annual grant, effectively lowering their rate to $25,000 a year.
That’s still not cheap for many students or their families, as St. John’s president Mark Roosevelt acknowledges. But the lower sticker price, and when financial aid and scholarships are taken into consideration, should put St. John’s “into the conversation” for more working- and middle-class students interested in the nowrare classical education that the college offers, focusing on Western civilization’s foundational texts, science and math.
St. John’s says it’s abandoning “prestige pricing” — the notion that a higher price means a better product — and that it is moving to a “philanthropy-centered” financial model. That means the college wants to raise money to create an endowment big enough to offset the reduced tuition.
It appears that St. John’s just might be able pull this off. It has a mere 780 or so students between its original Annapolis, Md., campus and the Santa Fe location. But over the years it apparently has produced enough graduates who’ve been really, really successful and are willing to give big sums back to their alma mater to make achieving a lofty fundraising goal a reality.
A renowned winemaker and his artist wife from California — both St. John’s grads — have put up a $50 million matching grant. That means their foundation will match donations by others of up to $50 million, with the potential to create $100 million for the St. John’s endowment.
A couple of years ago, two donors who made their bucks in the financial world gave $25 million each. The school wants to raise $300 million to double the size of its endowment and already has $183 million in commitments toward that goal.
Skeptics will probably wonder if there’s a hidden motive here, that maybe abandoning a high price tag is really an effort to boost enrollment at a school that in 2016 had to make some layoffs in the face of a deficit. Not so, says Roosevelt. The Annapolis campus is full, there’s room for just 50 to 70 more students in Santa Fe, and the school’s finances are in fine shape, he said.
Regardless, it’s wonderful to see a school move away from what Roosevelt called “the ridiculous escalation in sticker prices” for college educations.
St. John’s probably will always be a somewhat remote part of Santa Fe’s cultural landscape. It’s special curriculum isn’t for everybody. It’s not trendy or trying to be modern. It’s not offering the kind of job-specific training that politicians and economic development directors like to hype. There’s no basketball team to root for.
But starting next school year, it should be much easier for students — particularly New Mexico students — who desire and feel ready for the challenge to take on the kind of education that St. John’s offers. It’s a move that should be good for St. John’s, and for Santa Fe.