The Board of Trustees approved the University's budget for the next fiscal year on Thursday, including a 3.7 percent increase in total undergraduate tuition and fees.

"While we know very well that no increases are welcome, this keeps the increase substantially below the level envisioned in the strategic plan; both the Board and the administration are very sensitive to the need to control, insofar as possible, the cost of a Brandeis University education," reads a statement that Senior Vice President for Communications Ellen de Graffenreid provided to the Justice.

Although the fiscal year is not yet complete, de Graffenreid wrote that the University projects the deficit has been reduced to less than $3.5 million. "[I]t is important to note that this is an annual deficit and is very small, just slightly over [one] percent of the total annual budget, which is easily covered from reserves," she wrote in an email to the Justice.

According to de Graffenreid, next year's total operating budget is about $331 million "and projects a very small annual budgeted deficit" at approximately $1.8 million.

Senior Representative to the Board of Trustees Jack Hait '14 said in an interview with the Justice that the University has been working to rebid contracts, make the campus more energy-efficient with upgrades and increase revenues from Students and Enrollment in order to reduce the deficit.

Two semesters of tuition for students who first enrolled after spring 2012 will be $46,022, while tuition for those who first enrolled before summer 2012 will be $45,608, according to statistics provided by Dean of the Office of Student Financial Services Peter Giumette. Required fees for all students will cost $1,536. Board, using the 12-meal plan with $875 in points, is $5,700 for all students. The overall cost will be $60,336 for students who enrolled before summer 2012 and $60,750 for students who enrolled after spring 2012. Giumette did not respond to questions about how these prices and breakdowns compare to last year's by press time.

De Graffenreid wrote that she could not provide information about the percentage by which financial aid will increase for next year, as those numbers are dependent upon the students who choose to enroll at Brandeis.

Although there will be an increase in the overall cost of attendance, the releases stated that "[t]he University is working hard to improve efficiency and cost effectiveness in our operations and increase private support."

Hait said that the board is sympathetic to and shares student concerns about raising the cost of attendance. In addition, he said that the share concerns regarding budget transparency, explaining why tuition is rising, where student dollars are going and the direction in which the University sees the overall cost of attendance going.

Although, according to Hait, the Board shares these concerns, Hait also said that the University only has a "certain number of levers to pull." Hait said that one of the biggest costs to the University is financial aid, so one of the easiest ways to address this cost would be to instate a quota that would determine how many accepted students would have to pay full tuition.

However, he said that is "not at all what the Board wants to do." He said that the University wants economic diversity and believes that it "should accept students without regard to their financial capabilities."

Another "lever," he said, would be to raise tuition, and to raise the scholarship and financial aid rate equally. A final option would be to ignore deferred maintenance, although he said that if these issues are addressed when they become crises, they are actually more expensive to repair than if they were addressed before.

Hait said that he believes the board has the same goal in mind: to "maintain Brandeis as a good academic institution and make it as accessible as possible."

"Everyone agrees on this goal. All the disagreement happens in the details," Hait said. "From our perspective, I think the resounding experience from sitting in on the Board meetings is that's exactly what they're trying to accomplish. They're trying to say, 'how do we make this institution affordable without losing who we are in terms of our identity and our excellence.'"

The increase, according to the release, accompanies several "critical" initiatives, including "maintaining our historic commitment to financial aid." Other initiatives include accelerating employer outreach in the Hiatt Career Center, "as we seek to build on our exceptional 95 percent placement rate within six months of graduation;" expanding student offices in community services and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer services in response to requests and proposals from the student body; a renovation of the Usdan Student Center; a refurbishment of the Foster Mods and part of Ziv Quad; and several "dynamic" faculty hires to "maintain our low faculty to student ratio that is essential to maintaining our tradition of highly personalized and engaged educational opportunities."

The faculty positions that were added include the two new faculty members in African Diaspora studies for next fall, according to de Graffenreid.