Update 5:50 p.m.: This article has been updated to include an emailed statement from Director of Media Relations Michelle Gaseau.

The college’s Board of Trustees approved a 4 percent undergraduate tuition increase and a 2 percent graduate tuition increase to take effect in the 2019-20 school year, according to a letter released to the Beacon by a college official on March 21.

The increase raises undergraduate tuition to $47,856 and room and board to $18,400 with a double room totaling $66,256 and $2,556 increase from the tuition for the 2018-19 academic year. Prior to the rise, tuition totaled approximately $63,700 per year.

The two percent graduate tuition increase brings the price of taking a four-credit course to $5,104 at a rate of $1,276 per credit hour.

Director of Media Relations Michelle Gaseau said in an emailed statement to the Beacon that the college must also meet its operating and capital needs while the Board of Trustees works to keep the annual tuition increases low.

“Entering students and their families are counseled to anticipate and plan for an annual increase in the range of about 3 percent to 5 percent per year,” she said. “If a student is concerned about the feasibility of their continued enrollment, they should contact the Office of Student Success.”

The letter, signed by President M. Lee Pelton and Chairman of the Board of Trustees Jeffrey Greenhawt, shows how the college might use the increased revenue for investments. These investments include new faculty positions, increased financial aid, the new Public Relations major, and two new liberal arts minors titled Health and Society and Psychoanalysis as Cultural Criticism.

“We are mindful of the significant investment that college tuition represents for our students and their families, and of the impact that these increases may have, and the Board of Trustees has worked diligently to keep annual increases as low as possible,” Pelton and Greenhawt wrote in the letter to undergraduate and graduate students. “At the same time, the Board must also meet the College’s operating and capital needs, as well as invest in the people and programs that sustain and advance Emerson as the nation’s premier institution of higher learning devoted to communications, the arts, and the liberal arts.”

This is an ongoing story. Check back for updates.