Boston University President Robert Brown announced an overall 3.4 percent increase in the cost of tuition for the 2016-17 academic year in an email sent to BU students on Friday. This includes a 3.7 percent increase in tuition and 2.4 percent increase in room and board. The standard tuition at Boston University is now $50,240, while the standard housing and dining rate is now $14,870. That makes the combined price of attending BU for a full year $65,110. That doesn’t even include the overpriced textbooks.
This is the lowest price increase in 20 years, Brown wrote in his email. He also mentioned that BU’s tuition has had an average increase of 3.8 percent over the past five years.
While tuition increases at a private university are only to be expected, BU’s annual tuition hikes become more and more irritating each year. Students understand that the university needs more money to provide its students with a quality education, but that doesn’t mean the students have to enjoy paying for it. These price increases are especially infuriating when they’re issued by a university that seems like it already has enough money as it is.
A large factor that goes into BU’s tuition increases is President Brown’s attempt at positioning the university as a new Ivy League school, a college just as prestigious as our neighbors across the river. But the way to improve BU’s reputation is not to demand more money from its students. As it stands, BU is more expensive than an Ivy League university, but its reputation and prestige aren’t nearly as great. Students are paying more money for what could arguably be considered a second-rate degree.
The first thing people usually say in response to a student saying they go to BU is not, “Wow, you must have worked really hard in high school,” but, “Wow, that college is really expensive.” The emphasis is not on BU’s academic rigor, but on its price of attendance. And in college, nobody’s reputation should be dependent on how much money they, or their parents, can shell out.
But there is no pressure on the Board of Trustees to slow down the annual increases in tuition. BU’s tuition has been rising for as long as its students can remember, yet potential students keep applying to the university. BU has a reputation for being accessible to those from mostly upper-middle-class backgrounds. Soon, BU will be a university for the economically well-to-do instead of the academically driven.
Brown stressed the importance of tuition being used to fund financial aid, but the increase in tuition can make it impossible for many students from lower-income families to study at BU. Yes, Brown wrote that BU plans to disperse $230 million to half of the student body next year, but this money is an unsustainable amount of money for those not part of the upper middle class.
Additionally, hourly rates for work-study jobs stagnate as tuition increases, so trying to pay off college loans has become increasingly futile.
Many of BU’s students do come from upper middle class backgrounds, and the Board of Trustees can count on them to keep paying tuition while students from lower classes suffer. But BU should see this and recognize that it doesn’t want to lose excellent students because of the university’s astronomical price.
Brown knew how students would receive an email about tuition, so he pointed out how some of the increases will go toward funding Student Health Services and help provide financial aid to those in need. But raising tuition to raise more money to help people pay for a higher tuition is counterproductive.
Instead of focusing on how small the increase is compared to previous years, the Board of Trustees needs to look at how high the tuition has gotten. Increases in tuition can’t be justified forever, and higher tuition doesn’t necessarily correlate with quality of a school.
Students will always complain about how much money they’ll have to spend for tuition, but it’s not unwarranted. If you had to work all your life to pay off loans, you would be frustrated too. And if Brown wants to make BU better, he needs to steer its reputation beyond fiscal status.
This is not just a BU problem. It is a nationwide college problem. Higher education should be awarded to those who have earned it, not just those who can afford it.