As high school juniors and seniors tour the Boston University campus during their February vacations, one of the most important topics on their minds is tuition while their parents are asking, ‘What is BU’s retention rate?’ Nobody wants to go to a university that can’t convince its own students to return for another year. Being a prestigious private institution, BU has stayed well ahead of the national average of a 66 percent retention rate among first-year college students for the 2007 academic year.
However, these numbers could change dramatically for the class of 2012. Last year’s freshmen were deciding whether or not to return to BU more than a year ago. That was when the recession began, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. The finances of many BU families could be totally different from what they were one year ago. Since then, a parent could have lost his or her job, or a student may not have been able to secure the loans that enabled them to attend school this year. The retention rate of upperclassmen at the university must also not be ignored. It makes sense that the closer a student is to graduating, the less likely it would be for them to suddenly drop out, but they may have no other choice in this harsh economic climate.
BU and its students are locked in a catch-22. Many current and prospective students of BU can hardly afford the $50,000 annual price tag of a BU education. With so much uncertainty in the job market, many will wonder if it is worth spending more than $200,000 over four years without the guarantee of a good job that will allow them to pay back the debt they have accrued during their time at BU.
But the university has budget problems of its own. Students cannot realistically hope that BU will lower tuition anytime soon when half the university’s income is dependent on tuition. The university must do all it can, however, to keep tuition rates from increasing. This will only increase the amount of financial aid requested by students, and the university will either have to meet their need, or turn students away in favor of the wealthy.
As children, many of us were told that if we worked hard in school, we could go to any college we wanted to. But like most childhood illusions, students are seeing that you can’t always get what you want, no matter how bright you are. Until financial conditions improve, more and more students are going to have make tough choices about their education and this will be reflected in future retention rate reports.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
