In Tuition Game Popularity Rises With Price.pdf - University of Notre ...

In Tuition Game, Popularity Rises With Price - New York Times
from 1993 to 2004 , more than double the inflation rate, according to the College Board, while
campus-based financial aid rose 135 percent.
The average cost of tuition, fees, room and board at those colleges is now $30,367. Many
charge much more; at George Washington University, the sum is more than $49,000.
But aid is now so extensive that more than 73 percent of undergraduates attending private
four-year institutions received it in the school year that ended in 2004, not even counting
loans.
“We can cushion the sticker shock,” said Amy Gutmann, president of the University of
Pennsylvania, which distributes aid on the basis of financial need. “We focus on both middleincome
and low-income families.”
So net prices vary widely on a given campus. On some, as many as 90 percent of students
receive support, primarily from the college itself or the federal government.
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And financial need is not the only basis for it. Many colleges, competing for the students with
high grades and standardized test scores that help a college rise in rankings guides, offer merit
aid ranging from a few thousand dollars to a full scholarship.
But officials of private colleges and universities say they fear that unless other steps are taken,
the middle and upper middle class could ultimately be squeezed out.
“Eventually, if we’re going to keep raising tuition at rates much more than the increase in
family incomes, then something has to be done to make the places more accessible to the
middle class,” said Ronald G. Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell Higher Education Research
Institute.
As it is, some students may not even apply to private colleges, scared away from the start by
tuition and unaware of the available discounts. After all, tuition and fees at public colleges and
universities — though growing recently at a faster pace than those at private institutions —
remain vastly lower, at an average of $5,836, the College Board says.
It can be argued that everyone studying at a private liberal arts college is getting a discount. At
institution after institution, officials say they offer an education costing tens of thousands of
dollars more than even the college’s “sticker price.”
Take Swarthmore, the elite college half an hour’s drive from Ursinus. With an annual budget of
$106 million to educate just under 1,500 undergraduates, Swarthmore spends about $73,690 a
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12/12/2006