HAGEN: Going broke for brains

“Mom, Dad, I don’t know how to tell you this but I’m pregnant.” No, I think I can do better than that. “Mom, Dad, don’t worry, I am not pregnant but I have decided to drop out of school in order to marry my secret boyfriend, Smutty Bob. He is a traveling bong salesman. It was love at first pipe.” No, still not good enough. Every Sunday night since freshman year, I’ve called home to catch up with my family and I sometimes wonder what line my parents most dread may come out of my mouth when they pick up the phone. After careful thought, I think I’ve finally found it. “Mom, Dad, bad news. I miscalculated the number of credits I need and I have to spend an extra year at Boston University. Don’t worry, though, tuition only rose 3.85 percent this year!” (Cue dropping of phone and possible cardiac arrest.) Yes, I definitely discovered the stuff my parents’ nightmares are made of.

A month has gone by since BU sent a school-wide email on March 17 declaring the new tuition increase (nothing kills a St. Patrick’s day buzz faster) and yet, since then, I have heard little protest or complaint from my fellow classmates. This increase ultimately does not affect me, since in about a month I graduate and enter my own meaningless existence, but it still perturbs me to see tuition continue to rise. After adding up the tuition, room and board and other fees, the final total comes to $54,130 up from $51,574. Relatively speaking, it is a small increase but then again, it is usually shocking when the price of something increases in only a year by $2,556 and we are not living in, say, Zimbabwe.

The annual tuition for BU in 1980 was $8,120, meaning the cost of an entire four years of college then could not even cover the cost of one year today. This is not entirely surprising because prices rise naturally due to inflation. However, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator (which sets the inflation rate at 171.2 percent), the equivalent tuition for 2011 should be $22,021. This shocking difference of $32,109 begs the question, why does college cost so much and where exactly is our money going?

It would be naïve to place blame solely upon the shoulders of BU. The out of control spiraling of tuition rates is a nationwide phenomenon and schools around the country are seeing similar tuition inflation rates for next year. At the beginning of the current academic year, The Los Angeles Times addressed the national tuition bubble crisis as well as the above questions. The article concluded, “extra charges aren’t going for education. Administrators, athletics and amenities get funded, while history departments are denied new assistant professors. A whole generation of young Americans is being shortchanged; largely by adults who have carved out good careers in places we call colleges.” It seems college is solely a business and no longer is its sole business to educate students.

Given current inflation rates, by the time our own little brats enter the hallowed halls of America’s finest institutions, it is going to set us back over half a million dollars. We must now ask ourselves the question of whether or not a Bachelors degree is really worth $500,000. Especially because holding one, as I am swiftly learning, is often no longer enough to even qualify for many entry-level positions in the job market.

Perhaps we should take the approach toward higher education advocated by PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel, i.e., skip it all together. In 2010, Thiel established the “20 Under 20,” a program which identifies 20 high-achieving high school seniors and provides them $100,00 with which to start their own business instead of going to college. While certain professions, such as those in the medical and engineering fields, certainly demand a specialized knowledge that requires intense classroom instruction, would the rest of us better benefit from a yearlong training course in entrepreneurship and 100 grand?

I believe college has been the most valuable experience of my life so far but is should not be assigned a value so great that it is sending our generation into crushing debt. There is no way I was mature to start a business at 18. In fact, I had not even figured out my major yet. I am thankful for the incredible learning experience, both in and out of the classroom, that BU has provided me with but it is most likely an experience my children and most future generations will not be able to afford. Why must a life-altering education go hand-in-hand with potentially lifelong debt?

In late 2010, when British students learned their average tuition costs were going to increase by almost 300 percent, from $5,200 to $14,200, they did not idly accept it. They protested. Although our own increases are marginally smaller, they are being added on to an already overwhelming cost and we literally cannot afford to remain silent. In order to let politicians and schools administrators understand our dissatisfaction, we must have a voice.

Let’s start putting our expensive college educated brains together and come up with a solution. In fact, I challenge BU President Robert Brown (most recent salary and benefits valued at $1,043,292) as well as all other university presidents across the country to release a public and easily accessible report that documents where every last cent of our tuition costs are going. I want to know all the painstaking details and don’t worry, I am unemployed and graduating, so I will have lots of time to review it.

Steph Hagen is a senior at the College of Arts and Sciences and a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at shagen@bu.edu.