Yale School of Music to Offer Degree Program Tuition-Free

By Jenna Russell, The Boston Globe

Nov. 4–The Yale School of Music already offered students world-famous faculty members, proximity to New York City, and a well-polished reputation as one of the top music programs in the country.

But starting in the fall of 2006, the school will add another remarkable benefit: full tuition waivers for every student, courtesy of a $100 million gift from anonymous donors.

The graduate school, which educates musicians, composers, and conductors, was already highly selective, and leaders expect a sharp increase in applications as a result of the no-tuition policy announced this week, Acting Dean Thomas C. Duffy said. He said the two-year program has about 210 students and it accepts about 100 students out of more than 600 applicants a year.

Duffy added that the school had been deluged with phone calls from eager but misguided high school guidance counselors yesterday, the day after the gift was announced.

“We’re glad people are thinking of Yale, but we’re a graduate school,” the dean said. “We offer master’s degrees.”

School leaders chose the tuition waiver as the best use for the unprecedented donation, according to Yale officials. It also expands universitywide efforts to improve access for low-income students, months after Yale said it would not expect any financial contribution from undergraduates whose families make less than $45,000 per year.

The tuition waiver will also apply to students in their second year at the conservatory. The school will not cover living expenses, but it would consider offering stipends to pay expenses in the future, when Yale receives a larger amount of the money, which is being donated in phases.

In Boston, Yale’s good fortune means more competitive pressure for the New England Conservatory. Ellen Pfiefer, a spokeswoman for the conservatory, applauded the Yale donors for their generosity and acknowledged that the appeal of free tuition will be tough to match.

“It ups the ante,” she said. “We all recognize that a lot more financial aid is really crucial, especially to get the students we want. All the kids deserve it, because they work so hard.”

A $100 million capital campaign at New England Conservatory has raised $65 million so far, most of it earmarked for scholarships, she said. Full-time tuition this year at the Boston conservatory is $27,500. At Yale School of Music, it is $23,750 this year.

Tuition-free college programs are “very rare, but not unheard of,” said Rae Goldsmith, a spokeswoman for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education in Washington, D.C. At Berea College, a “working college” in Berea, Ky., tuition is free, and students work on campus to offset other costs. The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham has been free to all students — room and board are also paid — since it opened three years ago, a project of the charitable F.W. Olin Foundation.

Jennifer Chen, 24, arrived at Yale this fall with $20,000 in preexisting student loans after earning a master’s degree in flute performance at the University of Houston.

She borrowed another $10,000 for her first year in the Yale postgraduate program, after attending a financial aid counseling session where she was told she would need to earn an annual salary of $55,000 after graduation to keep up with her payments — roughly twice what she expects to make as a musician.

“It was kind of scary,” she said.

Chen said she was “speechless” to learn of the $100 million gift, which will allow her to finish the program without borrowing more money. “Most people would give money to law or medicine before music, so for someone to think of music this way . . . wow,” she said.

Another well-respected music school, The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, has been tuition-free since 1928. The tiny undergraduate program accepted 38 of 700 applicants last year, Dean Bob Fitzpatrick said; all 38 chose to attend.

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