By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 8, 2008 1:37 PM

George Washington University is launching a five-year plan to make the school more affordable, including holding tuition increases next year to 3 percent for freshmen and pushing to quadruple fundraising for financial aid to $40 million annually by 2013, President Steven Knapp announced today.

For several years, the school has frozen tuition rates for incoming freshmen, so that they pay the same amount for up to the next five years, and their financial aid is guaranteed not to decrease. But the school has taken considerable heat for its sticker price -- it's easily one of the most expensive colleges in the country, with annual costs over $50,000.

More than 30 colleges have eliminated required loans from financial aid packages, and schools such as Princeton, Harvard and Yale made headlines recently by dramatically increasing aid to needy and middle-class families.

GW can't match that, Knapp said, because its $1.2 billion endowment is a fraction of the size of those at the wealthiest schools. But, he said, the school will work to lessen its dependence on tuition revenue to moderate increases in tuition, which at most schools have outstripped inflation, and to reduce students' debt burdens.

The school will spend an additional $6 million on grants to incoming freshmen next year, whose tuition will be $40,392. And the school will cut the price on 1,000 beds by about 19 percent next year, reining in costs for students with financial need.