Knowles has made much in the past few years of his ability to "decrease the increase" of tuition from year to year.

For instance, the tuition increase for this year was 3.5 percent, 0.7 percent less than the year before.

Median family income should rise faster than tuition to enable families to afford the tuition increases, according to Knowles.

But because the calculations which led to this trend are so subjective--and have been made easier by a ballooning endowment--Knowles is not tightly constrained in seeking this pleasant outcome.

"Above all, predictability is a virtue," Knowles says. "I want to avoid sharp changes in tuition from year to year."

The corporation and the administration are equally committed to keeping the rate of increase down, according to Daniel.

"Everbody's supportive of Jeremy's strategy," Huidekoper says.

And even in times of greater financial need, officials say they would use more endowment money before increasing tuition substantially.

"I suspect we'd be willing to let the spending rate go up a bit" before raising tuition, Daniel says.

Princeton's Example

Not all schools employ the same method to derive their tuition price.

For example, at Princeton a committee that includes students, faculty, administrators and staff--in sharp contrast to Harvard empowering Knowles, subject to approval by the corporation--determines the rate, taking numerous factors into account.

Princeton's Vice President for Finance and Administration Richard R. Spies says the University's system is too complicated simply to use expenditures as a way to set tuition.

Spies says that "in a much simpler system where tuition was the only source of income" you could lower tuition, if you cut costs.

But he says at Princeton and other universities, "the costs and charges are not inextricably linked."