STAFF EDIT: Tuition pain

It’s the most pressing issue for college students and their families today: affordability. The entire nation is affected by the current financial failures of its economic pillars, and the ever-rising costs of a college education have only added to families’ inability to make ends meet. With the crunch pressuring Americans at both ends, more needs to be done to ease what has become the tremendous burden of college education.
Currently, the federal government tries to help its employees with a program that assists graduates with their student loans. The assistance applies those with so-called ‘public service jobs,’ but that only covers a small portion of college grads. The majority of graduates find no such government help ‘-‘- they are left out in the cold during the financial freeze.
Where are Boston University graduates to turn? As a product of a private school education, the typical BU graduate has thousands of dollars of debt to pay off for years to come. The university certainly tries to help by promising most financial aid, but few students get their full need met without the aid of student loans. Only about half of students even qualify for university aid, according to the administration. If BU is serious about helping its students out during the financial crisis, it should take action quickly and meaningfully.
The university provides many services and programs for its students, many of which are responsible for its positive reputation and attractiveness to potential students. Others, however, are not worth the cost. The administration’s four-year guarantee of housing is certainly helpful, but the savings it could gain from abandoning costly makeshift dormitories like the Hyatt could be used to benefit students even more. Initiatives like changing the university’s logo, a massive public relations overhaul that attracted criticism last semester, represent the kind of frivolous costs that do more to hurt BU’s reputation among cash-strapped students than it does to attract new applicants.
Do these things really justify a near-$50,000 tuition bill? The money saved by cutting extraneous programs and initiatives can and should be used to help students and their families afford their annual bill. If that kind of refocusing of financial aid isn’t possible, the least BU can do is end the current trend of increasing tuition costs each year.’ With the self-imposed hiring freeze, the national financial environment, and now that inflation is not a problem, there is no justification for increasing the price tag this year.
Perhaps the university can even be progressive and take cuts seriously enough to reduce its already sky-high tuition costs. Institutional progress and growth is important, especially in the very competitive field of higher education, but when the university receives more than 40,000 applications a year, it can afford to make its tuition more affordable.