As cost of attendance increases, Barnard announces development of new Student Financial Services Office

Barnard will be merging its Bursar’s Office and Financial Aid Office as part of a shift toward centralizing student services.

Photo by Haley Scull/The Barnard Bulletin

By Vernon Demir

June 2, 2026

On May 22, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Sharon Hewitt Watkins and Vice President for Enrollment and External Affairs Jennifer Fondiller announced that Barnard’s Bursar’s Office and the Office of Financial Aid would be consolidated into a unified Student Financial Services Office. According to the message, the Student Financial Services Office was created in response to feedback concerning the “complexity of managing billing and financial aid.”

The creation of the Student Financial Services Office comes in the midst of a larger move by the College to streamline administrative and academic platforms. On April 2, President Laura Rosenbury announced the development of Workday Student, an information system that would “help simplify … teaching, learning, and student services” at Barnard. President Rosenbury also noted that Workday Student would help students “understand their financial aid awards and financial obligations.”

The Student Financial Services Office will serve as a “centralized hub” that will “handle all billing and financial aid matters” for the 2026-2027 academic year, including issuing financial award statements and handling students’ financial aid- and billing-related inquiries. As part of this consolidation, the Bursar’s Office staff will be moving to the Financial Aid Office in the Barnard Quad. 

Watkins and Fondiller also stated that the Student Financial Services Office’s website, which is currently in development, will also consolidate information about billing, student accounts, and financial aid “in a more intuitive and accessible style.” 

“The goal is to make it easier for students to get clear, coordinated answers in one place,” Watkins and Fondiller wrote. 

The message also announced that the Barnard Board of Trustees approved rates for the upcoming 2026-2027 academic year, which would see a 3.5 percent “overall increase [in tuition] for rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors.” For the 2025-2026 academic year, Barnard’s tuition increased by 4.5 percent from the previous year.

Tuition at Barnard has increased by 31.08 percent, or almost one-third, since the 2020-2021 academic year.

Graph by Kimberly Wing/The Barnard Bulletin. Data from Barnard College's Tuition and Fees page.

In addition to tuition, other expenses, such as housing and meal plans, have increased for the 2026-2027 academic year. This has resulted in Barnard’s total cost of attendance increasing from $99,874 in the 2025-2026 academic year to an estimated $103,000 in 2026-2027. Estimates for expenses such as meals ($1,200), miscellaneous costs ($1,830), transportation ($1,070), and direct loan fees ($50) remained constant across both academic years.

“Tuition dollars help us support and grow our faculty and continue our investment in the co-curricular parts of campus life that have long helped define the Barnard experience,” Watkins and Fondiller wrote.

*The College notes that these amounts “are estimated and subject to change.” Housing costs are “based on room assignment and first-year or upperclass student.”

Graph by Kimberly Wing/The Barnard Bulletin. Data from Barnard College's Tuition and Fees page.

The new Student Financial Services Office will begin its operations in late June in the issuing of financial aid awards for returning students, and will release official fall semester bills the first week of July.