Le Bon Con

The Cost of Education

Let me preface this little rant with a little bit of background information. I work in my school’s annual giving office, so I’m more intimately aware than most of the student body with how the budget works at my college. I worked in my high school’s development office, so I was pretty aware of the annual budget there too. I have also never had to pay for my tuition out of my own pocket, my parents have always been very supportive and although I do help them with certain costs of my education, they cover the majority of them. All of that being said, I can’t help getting pissed off sometimes when people complain about tuition in the way that they usually do.

Here’s the basic argument that people seem to give. They get pissed off that tuition is so expensive, or there is a fee they don’t want to pay, or that tuition is being raised. The last of these is what sparked this little rant of mine, because I heard somebody talking about how stupid it is that they raise tuition every year (or at least almost every year). Well here’s the thing that people don’t seem to understand: expenses increase.

Okay, so let’s say a student complains about the library sucking (which ours kind of does). So the school decides that they are going to renovate the library. Between the materials, labor costs, planning and implementation it’s going to cost $15 million (random made-up number). In order to get that $15 million, the school can either:

• Take out loans and accumulate debt
• Raise the necessary funds through private donors
• Raise the necessary funds through grants, other public donors
• Increase tuition to cover the cost of the project

Or some combination of the above. If the school goes into debt, people get mad that they are spending money they don’t have. If they raise tuition, people get mad that they have to pay more for the school, even though the value is increasing with the renovation. If they raise the funds through donors and/or grants, people don’t seem to worry about it. But when those people’s turn comes to give… relatively few give back generously enough to fund that kind of project quickly. So the project ends up taking a lot longer because the funds aren’t available right away. If the school decided that the library project is too expensive, then people will go back to complaining about how much the library sucks.

The bottom line is… pick something to complain about, but be logical about what you’re saying. There is a strong argument that education costs should be way cheaper… and I agree. But that money has to come from somewhere whether it’s private companies, taxes, alumni donors, whatever. It just bugs me when people have this warped sense of an operating budget that makes no sense.

So please, don’t go to a school just to complain about how much you’re paying for it. Don’t be surprised when tuition increases… the school is just covering its increased expenses. And please please don’t blame it on a lack of funding if you are not going to step up to the plate after you graduate and become a donor. Or if you decide to do all of these things always… don’t expect to talk to me about it and have me agree.

Rant = complete.