The Rising Price of Education
The University of Denver is a very good school; this point is incontrovertible. Among all public and private “National Universities” it is ranked 85th, and currently the 48th best private university by U.S. News & World Report in 2008. Its School of International Studies is ranked 9th in the nation for graduate programs, and is ahead of such prestigious schools as Syracuse, Yale, Stanford, UC Berkeley and MIT. An impressive record attracts impressive students; however affording an education at DU is incredibly difficult to say the least.
Let’s face it, not everyone is endowed with almost $50,000 extra per year to see them through college. In fact, I’d think, this is rather rare. There is of course the hope of a scholarship. If a student is smart enough or talented enough, there is a small chance that the University will grant them a scholarship to cover their entire education. A more common occurrence is a scholarship that lowers tuition significantly; however even with this, the price is still high, and then there are the students who are smart, but just not enough to earn a scholarship.
With an impressive record such as DU’s, it is clear that the people who choose to come here are looking for an exceptional education. For this reason alone, the price of an education is going to be higher than that of most of the schools ranked behind DU. Also, being a private school and therefore lacking the funding from the state that public schools receive, the university needs to charge more to make ends meet. Good professors, winning sports teams and a beautiful campus do not come cheap, but $45,000? That’s almost $10,000 more than the Ivy League Yale and almost $35,000 more than a public school in New York State.
My sister is in the public SUNY system in New York and pays, on average, $10,000 to go to school per year. By the time she graduates this May, she’ll have paid less to go to school all four years than I’ll have paid for a single year. My parents almost fainted when they saw the price of my chosen school. I’m sure many other students feel the same: the price may be outrageous, but it will be worth it in the end when they have an excellent education… right?
I believe there has to be a way to lower the cost of tuition. There are plenty of other schools around the country that don’t charge as much as DU. Take, for example, the University of Portland, another private school. Their cost is still high, but it is $7,000 less than DU. Any reduction would help even if it’s as small as $7,000. Of course to save some money a student may choose to live at home or off campus where the cost may be slightly less. However this would be extremely difficult for the majority of students who live out of state and are stuck under the two years of residence on campus rule. Lowering the cost per credit hour could be a way to lower the overall cost. As a student, I’m only allowed a total of 18 credit hours without paying more than tuition. In my opinion $45,000 should cover more than an average of four classes. In the Chancellor’s annual report from 2008 he states that the University has “significant reserves and fundraising success.” I for one would like to see more of these reserves and fundraising success’ go to student tuition. There was a surplus of $33.9 million after the expenses of the university were taken care of. Why couldn’t some of this take care of tuition? DU’s current endowment is $300 million, quite impressive especially compared with the $194 million endowment from just three years ago. However another way to lower tuitions would be to seek a greater endowment, or call upon the Chancellor for more long term fundraising opportunities that would bring in a substantial amount of money for the university.
I don’t have an advanced degree, and to some people this means that I’m not qualified to talk about tuition prices; but I am a college student, and therefore I have a firsthand experience with finding money for college. I pay over $14,000 every three months, and therefore qualified to have an opinion about my education. I’m a college student who feels the weight of the cost of a good education, especially with the current state of the economy. My family pays for my education, I wish I could help, but there is no way that any college student could make enough money to even dent the cost of a $45,000 tuition bill.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Like svasilius’s sister, my older sister also attends a public university and will likely pay less tuition in four years than I will pay in one year at University of Denver. Sometimes I wonder why I am paying four times as much my sister to attend a lower-ranked university. Most recently in 2009, USNews.com ranked University of Maryland at 53, while University of Denver remains 36 spots below at 89. Svasilius makes a valid point that DU should be able to find a way to lower costs. However, without higher tuition rates, DU would not be able to compete with public universities that receive governmental funding. Even though DU is at a lower ranking to some larger public universities, I personally feel that I am getting a valuable education because it is a smaller private university. Endowments may decline significantly and tuition may go up, but I do not foresee DU having a difficult time “staying afloat.” We survived the Great Depression. We have been in session for almost 145 years. I think the University of Denver will make it through this recession. Right now is a good time to be in college. Even though we are paying a ridiculous about of money for a private education, DU graduates have done this for years and they all make it out okay.
ReplyDelete