NEWS BRIEFS
Campus-wide power outage
On Friday, March 14, a campus-wide power outage impacted all MIT buildings powered by the MIT cogeneration plant. MIT Facilities reported that a manhole explosion outside of Green Hall on the corner of Amherst Alley and Danforth Street was the cause of the campus-wide power outage.
MITAlert issued a warning to the community at 1 p.m. on Friday asking people to avoid the area around Green Hall. At 2 p.m., MITAlert issued an update stating that power was in the process of being restored. MITAlert issued a final update at 2:45 p.m. on Friday stating that the power outage had been resolved, and that Facilities would continue working to ensure full power restoration.
Simmons Hall was the only residence hall that did not lose power completely; the power only went out for a few seconds. Internet problems at Maseeh as recent as yesterday can be attributed to the outage, given that network equipment was damaged and is in the process of being restored.
Trend of increasing tuition continues
Undergraduate tuition will increase by 3.5 percent for the 2014–2015 academic year. This increase follows a 3.45 percent increase from the 2013-14 academic year. Tuition increases annually; the lowest increase in recent years was 3.24 percent in the 2012–2013 academic year, while the largest increase was 4.9 percent in 2005–2006.
Tuition and fees will total $45,016, as opposed to $43,498 for the 2013–2014 academic year. Meanwhile, MIT has lowered its need-based undergraduate financial aid budget, which is set at $95 million this year, compared to last year’s $97.6 million.
MIT will continue its policy that students with family incomes below $75,000 per year will have their tuition expenses covered by scholarship funding. About 32 percent of the 4,477 undergraduates at MIT attend tuition-free.
Total estimated expenses per student, consisting of tuition, fees, housing, and dining, will be about $58,240 in the coming academic year, compared to the estimated $56,242 from the 2013–2014 academic year.
—Alexandra Delmore