I may be remiss, but I do not think I am alone in saying that the cost of a Brown education and all its trappings is a bitter pill to swallow in exchange for these four years.
Don't get me wrong: the value of the friendships we gain easily transcends the $40,000 price, and the degree's cachet is beyond question. But still, somewhere deep in my vigilantly suspicious reptilian brain I can't help wondering whether the costs I actually incur each semester resemble in any way the amount I see on the bill. When you get down to it, the only thing I can really be sure of concerning finances at Brown is that I, my parents, and my future self can always be asked to pay a little bit more.
The one scrap of consolation I get, as the College Board reported last week, is that all students are in the same sinking boat. According to the report, in 2004, tuition at all types of colleges - public universities, private colleges and community colleges - rose markedly yet again. Though the rate of increase was lower than last year's, it exceeded all other hikes in more than a decade. Now, for the first time, the average tuition tops $20,000 at private universities, $5,000 at public universities and $2,000 at community colleges.
There are a variety of explanations for the rising price of college. Health care has become more expensive; state funding of public universities has declined; endowments have shrunk due to the volatility of the stock market; schools have been spending more on lavish expansions of technology and facilities; and some universities, such as Brown, have made the transition to need-blind admission policies, which require more resources.
Yet the underlying problem is more complicated. Federal funding for Pell grants, the cornerstone of financial aid for low-income students, has expanded insufficiently to accommodate the growing demand. As a result, the actual amount given out to eligible students in 2003 was 1 percent lower than a year earlier. To make matters worse, Pell grants now cover only 23 percent of the cost for a public university, compared to 35 percent in 1980. At the same time, a shift toward funding merit-based scholarships has disproportionately benefited the middle and upper classes, leaving poorer students with a crippling onus of loans.
Disadvantaged students in Rhode Island suffer this problem acutely. In the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education's report "Measuring Up 2004," the state received a grade of "F" in affordability. The sum effect of these changes is to further crowd out the lower classes from college, consigning them to significantly lower-paying jobs. While the benefit of a bachelor's degree has always been demonstrable, the salary gap between high-school-educated workers and college graduates has never been greater. As it becomes less possible for poor students to attend college, social stratification becomes unavoidable. Even elite institutions that trumpet their diversity recognize this fact and are seeking to rectify it. Benefactors such as our own beloved Sidney Frank have initiated genuine efforts to enroll more truly low-income students through grants, not loans. His $100 million gift should make inroads on this problem.
A more rational approach might be to cut costs. I know quite personally the extent of inefficiency among Ivy League schools from my summers working in the archives of the University of Pennsylvania. Due to a family connection, I profited from a high-paying job that was in no way necessary, subsidized by the tuitions of students who had never even heard of the Penn archives, let alone the lucrative position of "student assistant."
As grateful as I am for the privilege of studying at Brown, I, like many students, have trouble getting over the exorbitant costs. And if that's the case for a firmly middle-class student like me, the prospects for anyone in a less propitious position are almost unimaginably, dauntingly bleak.
Benjamin Carlson '07 thanks Penn kids for their dough.
