2024-25 University Budget

April 17, 2024

Dear LMU Faculty and Staff,

Commencement season is upon us! I look forward to coming together in a couple of weeks to celebrate the culmination of our students’ achievements, enabled through your extraordinary teaching, mentorship, and care. In keeping with our purpose of making our stellar LMU experience possible, our Board of Trustees recently approved the 2024-25 budget and tuition.

Our budget expresses our values, and I believe we honor LMU’s values by prioritizing student financial aid to make our education more accessible; by investing in our faculty and staff, who make the LMU experience possible; and by advancing our mission through our strategic plan priorities. Earlier today, I shared this message with students, outlining next year’s tuition increases. At the heart of our endeavors is a steadfast appreciation for our faculty and staff, whose dedication is fundamental to fulfilling our goals. LMU’s transformative teaching and learning environment remains our foremost priority. By aligning our resources with our vision for the future, we reaffirm our pursuit to ignite a brighter world, driven by the collective spirit and contributions of our colleagues. Below, I share key budget priorities for FY2025 and the necessary adjustments to tuition that will empower these advancements. For a more complete picture of our budget, I invite you to review our audited financial statements, which we post publicly.

Supporting Our Faculty and Staff

Our students’ successes are directly tied to the expertise, dedication, and guidance of our faculty, our student development professionals, our campus ministers, and our staff. Next year’s budget has, as its top priority, the compensation of our full-time and part-time faculty and staff at all levels. We have prioritized faculty and staff compensation in our budget for several years. Beginning in 2016, we aligned faculty salaries with the market median, achieving this goal across nearly all our colleges and schools by 2022. With the support of our students, faculty, and staff, we raised the base compensation to at least $21 per hour for our lowest-paid colleagues, which we implemented in April 2023. Last fall, I announced a Multi-Year Compensation Initiative, reflecting our continuing commitment to attracting and retaining exceptional talent. This initiative aims to move full-time and part-time faculty and staff salaries toward the competitive range of the 75th percentile. I am excited about this and hope that you are, as well.

Strategic Plan: Inclusion, Innovation, and Impact

Our Strategic Plan is the path envisioned by our community, for our community, demonstrating our commitment to navigating the complexities of our rapidly evolving global society and helping to secure our students’ future.

Our budget enables us to advance our plan’s priorities of Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Innovation and Adaptability; and Extending Our Reach Beyond the Bluff.
Initiatives such as "Teaching Toward Justice and Diversity" which weaves DEI principles into the fabric of our curriculum, and the creation of academic programs such as the Doctorate in Business Administration, enhanced support for STEM initiatives, and hiring grant analysts to bolster research opportunities and revenue, all expand our academic offerings and encourage interdisciplinary partnerships, solidifying LMU's stature as an exemplar of higher educational excellence.

Improving our Campuses, Learning Facilities, and Technology

We continue investing in our campuses and technology to ensure LMU remains our students’ hub of learning, creativity, and co-curricular activities.

Learning Space Upgrades: This summer, roughly 40 learning and event spaces will undergo significant audio/visual technology upgrades, including the creation of four new general-purpose classrooms in University Hall.
Innovation in Education: We are proud that LMU has been ranked among the top 60 in the US News and World Report’s “Most Innovative Schools.” Today, LMU launched an artificial intelligence website with tools, resources, and security best practices for using AI, including information about Microsoft Copilot, a robust, secure, and private generative AI tool we are making available to you.
Excellence in the Arts: The Strub Theatre stands as a testament to our thriving arts community. With LMU Theatre Arts ranked No. 2 in the U.S., the recent renovation of Strub demonstrates our commitment to providing an unparalleled arts education.
Campus Beautification: Multiple sources rank LMU among the “Most Beautiful College Campuses” for good reason. This is the result of the awe-inspiring work of our Facilities Management colleagues, and we continue to invest in our campus (from new residence halls to everyday improvements such as drought-tolerant landscape design and other sustainability and climate change-related improvements) to ensure that LMU remains a visually inspiring environment conducive to learning and growth.

Tuition and Fees

This year’s tuition increase will support the priorities above, ensuring the sustainability and enhancement of our programs, while prioritizing financial aid to address affordability.

For the coming academic year, undergraduate tuition will be $60,970, marking an overall rate increase of 5.85%. Housing costs will increase by 5%, in line with our efforts to enhance residential life. Please note: 90% of our undergraduate students receive some form of financial aid to help cover the cost of attending LMU. Our housing rates remain lower than many off-campus alternatives, which is one way we address housing affordability challenges in a broader Los Angeles regional market that has experienced higher increases.
Graduate tuition rates differ by program and will be updated on the LMU Student Accounts website in the summer.
We aim to maintain transparency and provide our students with comprehensive information for their financial planning. Meal plan rates are available here, and parking rates will be updated here in June.

Financial Aid and Scholarships

By focusing fundraising on increasing our financial aid and scholarship funds, we aim to ensure that our LMU education remains within reach for brightest minds, notwithstanding financial considerations.

As of March 2024, LMU has awarded over $159 million in grants and scholarships to students for the 2023-24 academic year, with $121 million allocated to undergraduates.
Separately, LMU has disbursed more than $12.7 million in federal and state grants to undergraduates and over $3.9 million in paid work-study awards to enrolled undergraduate and graduate students.
Our comprehensive campaign is making great progress toward our fundraising goal of $250M for student support, access, and success initiatives, which includes new and existing scholarships and financial aid. As of March 31, 2024, our campaign has raised more than $120M for scholarships, creating 231 new scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students.

The work we accomplish together fortifies our reputation as a leading university that educates with purpose students who become persons for and with others. Thank you for your ongoing support and commitment to our mission. Together, we continue to make an everlasting impact on our community, and beyond.

With sincere appreciation, and in anticipation of our coming Commencement Weekend,

Timothy Law Snyder, Ph.D.

President