Next academic year, Saint Louis University will set a record: For the first time, tuition will break the $30,000 ceiling. After another 6 percent increase, officially announced on Jan. 9, 2008, the total for the 2008-09 year-sans room, board and fees-will top out at $30,330.
Six percent is average for annual undergraduate tuition increase across America. Especially when compared with last year’s 8.5 percent increase, this year’s hike almost comes as a relief.
Yet, for the first time in years, room and board rates will also increase, as will the cost of parking. How can we sustain that paltry sense of gratitude when our debts must expand, yet again, to meet the astronomical costs of higher education?
In business, goods and services are worth what people will pay.
As undergraduate degrees become ubiquitous in post-graduation job markets, and postgraduate degrees become necessary for advancement, students are apparently willing to pay anything.
Although SLU has developed a reputation for generosity with financial aid, static scholarships earned freshman year foot less and less of the total bill. In lieu of a multi-billion dollar endowment, the likes of which has allowed Harvard, Yale and other Ivies to virtually eliminate tuition for middle-income families, SLU students will have to keep paying their dues.
If we must submit to relentless tuition increase, we must also demand to know just how the value of our education increases. The more we must shell out, the more invested-literally and figuratively-we must become.
SLU is a private university, so it is not required to make its financial documents public. However, we expect more than a pleasant e-mail update with a glossed-over summary of construction updates. As students, customers and members of the community, we need a specific document outlining what our tuition money buys and where it goes.
Like a proposed SGA referendum that would have the activity fee increase with inflation, scholarships should rise proportionally with each rise in SLU’s tuition. If we must pay more for housing, the University should maintain a bigger and better corps of maintenance officials to fix the leaking faucets, clogged vents and sometimes squirrel-ridden dormitories it already has. If meal-plan costs expand, students should benefit with longer dining hours, especially on Fridays. And if parking fees increase, SLU must also increase parking lot security. Replace muggings and stolen cars with surveillance cameras and walking patrols, and students may even willingly accept rising fees.
Last year’s gouging was counterintuitive: Tuition increased by 8.5 percent, our rankings in the U.S. News and World Report’s best colleges spread plummeted by nearly 10 places. You can’t quantify an education, but, apparently, you can’t buy one either. If an increase in tuition leads to decrease in comparative quality of education, maybe we should pay less. Until then, students, parents, faculty, staff: Let’s demand to know where our money goes and demand increasing value with increasing prices.
