The Grinnell Board of Trustees has approved a 2.5 percent increase to the comprehensive fee for the 2026-27 school year, raising it to $91,938. An all-campus memo from Germaine Gross, vice president for finance and treasurer of Grinnell College, stated that “this is the lowest annual increase in the comprehensive fee since the College began keeping records 67 years ago.”
This news comes after Grinnell College administration successfully lobbied national legislators to avoid an endowment tax of $30 million and secured an endowment tax exemption. Ellen de Graffenreid, vice president of communications and marketing, wrote in an email to The S&B that College administration chose to “share that tax relief with students in the form of a lower-than-typical comprehensive fee increase.”
She also cited operational savings achieved through efforts to reduce dependence on the College’s endowment. The Board of Trustees has required that the College significantly reduce its dependency on its endowment by 2029.
This is the first year that the comprehensive fee has broken $90,000. The comprehensive fee for the 2025-26 school year totaled $89,694, following a 5.59 percent increase from the previous year. Gross’ memo stated that the average financial aid package for this year totals $67,476, and that the average cost of educating each student, calculated by dividing the total operating budget by the number of students, is still more than $23,000 higher than the comprehensive fee.
De Graffenreid stated that determining the comprehensive fee involves several different factors, including inflation, total student revenue, endowment performance and philanthropy. These variables are assessed annually, according to de Graffenreid, and therefore “it is premature to predict future increases in the comprehensive fee.”
