Inside Higher Ed has this piece on elite private colleges and universities that find themselves at, near, or just over the $40,000-a-year mark for tution and fees. Institutions in this, um, exclusive club include Brown, Swarthmore, Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Smith, Wesleyan, and many other top-tier private universities and liberal-arts colleges, including Oberlin, my alma mater, where total expenses for the current school year were a whopping $38,810.
Although I imagine that $40,000 is a frightening number for most people to contemplating paying for a year of higher education, it's still true that only students from the wealthiest families actually wind up footing the entire bill. Most receive financial aid, which in the case of students from low-income families usually covers the lion's share of college expenses. As a low-income Oberlin student in the early 90s (when total expenses were in the slightly less jaw-dropping neighborhood of 25 grand a year), I and my family never paid more than a small fraction of those expenses (not that it wasn't still a hardship).
The quandary for colleges and universities at this level has to do with the psychological significance of the $40K figure. Many (most?) students and parents, lacking a real understanding of how financial aid works at these institutions, could be discouraged from even applying, thinking they could never afford them. On the other hand, as one administrator puts it, "more and more people associate high costs with quality." So elite privates almost need to keep their costs at comparable levels to avoid the perception that their tuition is lower because their offerings are not as strong.
The real winners in all of this could be top-tier public colleges and research universities, many of which offer comparable educational quality (if a little less prestige) without the shockingly large price tag. Of course, the way things have been going with public higher ed funding over the past ten years or so, it may only be a matter of time before all higher ed in the U.S. is essentially a private endeavor.
Posted by Stacie at March 5, 2005 11:21 AMTime to "mull a mill". :) Seriously, that's nuts. 40k a year for a liberal arts degree?
Posted by: Philip T. Hunter at March 5, 2005 07:52 PMWell, yeah -- but of course, the vast majority of students don't actually pay anywhere near 40K a year. Even though Oberlin was around 25K a year when I went there, my family's contribution was never more than about $1000 a year. That kind of thing is still true. Of course, there are families that don't qualify for any financial aid at all -- and those are the kids that might decide they're better off at a good state school.
Posted by: Stacie at March 6, 2005 01:29 PMWhat's sad is that the financial aid process IS discouraging to folks....and it drives me up a wall that they consider the income of an absent parent. When they did finally say I qualified for a little dough (after I was on my own for a few years and didn't have to report my parents incomes), they ended up taking it away because they "made a mistake" and I had to come up with $700 on the fly to pay it back. I was BROKE (and hungry!) for weeks trying to recover from that...I never applied for anything else. It's too much of a hassle. So it took me 8 years to get a two year degree at the community college because I would pay as I could afford it (and worked full time). As hard as it was, I would rather see the money go to those who can't pay even with working full time jobs, etc. It took me awhile, but I DID do it. There are those who can't. In retrospect, wish I would've just applied for a loan because there's more "freedom" in that, if you take my meaning. Yeah, you've got to pay it back, but they're the best loans out there. I think it's worth it for the education and you can be done before you're an old hag like me (who still doesn't have a four year degree!) Of course, my friends who have private college degrees are STILL paying off their loans and they're older than I am!! Yikes!
Posted by: RR at March 7, 2005 10:56 AMThat would be me, RR (I guess I don't for sure that I'm older than you, but it wouldn't surprise me), still paying off my undergrad education 10 years after graduating (and not even close to having it paid off). Of course, I've really only been paying down my loans for about 4 of those 10 years, since the rest of the time I was a grad student and had my loans deferred.
What I borrowed to get through undergrad was about what you'd pay for a decent new car. Not bad, I think, considering that I feel I got a really good education along with a lot of college "experiences" that aren't available everywhere. Even so, I sometimes wonder if it was worth it. It's a tough call.
The financial aid process is terrifying, you're right. It's also pretty mysterious to most people. Plenty of people manage to jump through all of the hoops and discover that they can afford a super-expensive college after all -- but I've always wondered how many really talented students and their families are so initimidated by the numbers and so discouraged by the process that they never apply at all.
Posted by: Stacie at March 7, 2005 11:37 AM