When are we all going to start talking about the really high cost of going to Brandeis? I know a bunch of people who are being forced to drop out because Brandeis simply keeps raising tuition and costing too much.
This is not cool.
I don’t know why, but it seems like no one on campus is talking about the increasingly high cost of living here. Maybe people are uncomfortable discussing these sorts of things, or feel ashamed talking about how many loans they took out to get here? Honestly, I have no idea.
Enlighten me: how are you dealing with paying for college? Are you noticing a bunch of your friends leaving Brandeis early, or is it just me?
Tuition is not overinflated — that is really how much it costs. Heck, the university is losing money at the current rates (see all the articles about our financial crisis). It is cheaper in other countries (or at state schools) because the state is paying the bills.
We can argue the merits of whether the salaries paid to Brandeis staff and professors are merited (including my own), we can argue about what kind of activities the university should be involved in (some are more expensive than others), and so on.
To support the current activities of the university, the current rate of tuition is necessary. Unless we can find donors to subsidize it.
My mother is able to give me $3,000 a year I am on a $5,000 dollar scholarship… Brandeis refuses to give me more scholarship because they want my single mother to take out another mortgage on our house, I presume. (My mother makes between $35-39,000)
That leaves a little more than 41,000 to me in loans, to which I can earn about $5,000 dollars a year to pay upfront, and the rest comes from the MEFA loaning organization and the Federal Government.
4 years = about $120,000 debt with interest, and $24,000 interest free…
This is all from undergrad…
The real question is not just why we don’t talk about it: why don’t we DO anything about it? As Organize! mentioned, we lack substantive institutional power, so the implication should be that if we mobilized to take back some of that power we could freeze or even reverse tuition. There’s precedent for this: student unions in Quebec have frozen tuition for 7 of the last 10 years. Of course, their student unions are real unions; our student government is in place to manage us for maximum docility, whereas an effective student movement would need to agitate and organize.
And for the record – while my parents have a college fund, and I am on a partial scholarship, by agreement I have to pay ~$20,000 back to them in the five years after I graduate. Certainly not the worst scenario, but not a great start to an independent life, especially if I go to grad school.
People in other countries laugh at us and think that we are insane to pay so much for our education. Rightly so, I feel. We graduate this university with a mountain of debt, and should we desire to apply our educated intellect to create a more just world, we are ill-suited to do so: grassroots organizing, nonprofit work, etc. are all piss-poor paying jobs.
Even if we choose not to work in the social-justice realm, we are forced to pay incredible amounts, with ill future employment prospects. Our ability at age 17-18 when we are choosing which college to apply for and to determine how much debt to take on in relation to prospective employment is terrible. We are indentured servants – we agree to work (off our debt) for a time in the hopes of having greater economic prospects.
However, sometimes our shit just doesn’t pan out.
All of this is compounded and we are made helpless by the fact that we have no power in the matter of determining tuition. Though we have student representatives to the Board of Trustees, they have no vote. This is how the Board can increase tuition at a rate greater than inflation, eh?
As to my part – I’m paying ~40k.
Do you want an honest answer here? My parents currently think I’m a selfish, irresponsible person because I refuse to transfer to a state school. The savings things that were opened for me as a baby no longer exist. My parents personal savings are drained. My parents have taken out who know how much in federal loans, and this year it wasn’t enough; besides my federal student loans, I have $15k in private loans this year alone.
The American system is seriously broken. Then again, what in this country ISN’T?
I just take out the loans and try not to think about them. By next semester (my last) I will have taken out over $36,000 in loans, and that’s just the principal. I haven’t paid on the interest.
Next year I’ll be going to grad school, and that will all be paid for in loans. I will probably have to take out loans to cover living expenses too.
This sharply contrasts with Denmark, where I studied in the spring. Danish students not only pay no tuition, but they receive a stipend from the government for four years of their post-secondary education.