On Berg’s recent tuition increase

Some people believe that increasing Muhlenberg’s tuition and fees is necessary for maintaining the quality of our school and for improving it for the students. However, that could not be further from the truth. Nationwide, the high cost of attending college is nothing short of a crisis. College tuition increases are responsible for America’s current student loan debt exceeding $1.3 trillion dollars, and that number is only increasing. In fact, in the last 25 years, college tuitions have gone up by a staggering 440 percent, while the consumer price index has increased by 115 percent. The consumer price index is commonly used to track inflation; it measures the average prices of goods and services purchased daily. Had tuition hikes been consistent with the rate of inflation, students today would be paying on average $21,000 per year for college, not over $62,000.

So, one might wonder, where has all that money gone? Well it hasn’t gone to the professors or students; it’s gone straight to the administration. Between 1993 and 2007, nationwide enrollment in colleges went up by 14.5 percent, while administrative expenses disproportionately surged by 61 percent. Muhlenberg is no exception. For example, the Dean of Students’ office is currently looking for candidates for their new “Health and Wellness Prevention Specialist” position, one that will pay a salary of $60,000 per year, plus benefits. Positions like these are well intentioned, but unfortunately add significantly to administrative over- head costs that the students have to pay.

This trend of colleges growing their administration unnecessarily large is part of a destructive business model that empowers the board of trustees and the administration to consistently raise tuitions without input from the students or faculty. Colleges have the luxury of simply raising their price because of the availability of capital through government-backed student loans and other sources, and because most other colleges have jumped on the bandwagon and continuously raised their prices. Some of these schools include Lehigh University, Bucknell University, Franklin and Marshall College and Lafayette University. President Williams has in the past touted that Muhlenberg’s charges compare favorably to these schools, which is nominally true. Lehigh’s student charges for next year are $63,075, only $945 more than Muhlenberg’s $62,130. That’s a marginal difference, and is hardly favorable. However, what President Williams did not mention is that our new tuition compares quite unfavorably to that of other Lehigh Valley schools, such as Moravian College. Moravian’s tuition is $55,526, which amounts to 10% less than Muhlenberg’s. Additionally, it’s important to recognize that this is a 5% hike in tuition and fees. If you take a marketing course at Muhlenberg, they will teach you how companies use the “$1.99” pricing strategy, which causes people to perceive the price as lower by rounding down to $1, when in reality the price is $2. The same thing is happening here; the College wants us to perceive this as a lower increase than it actually is.

Muhlenberg prides itself on cultivating its students to be leaders. However, what kind of example is the College setting by being a follower and raising its prices just like most other colleges? Also, not all schools relentlessly raise their price. For example, Sewanee University in Tennessee, one of the top 50 Liberal Arts colleges in America, lowered its tuition by 10 percent to $41,500 in 2011. Sewanee then went on to freeze its tuition for their class of 2016 students. Similarly, Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts has also frozen their tuition in the past. Colleges like these are doing what most schools don’t do; they are recognizing the unsustainable trend of colleges persistently raising their price to outrageous levels and are doing something about it.

So what can us students do about this? To start, we need to speak out against the 5% increase. Send a letter to the President, go to a Student Government meeting and speak out against it, organize a protest, etc. The board of trustees and the administration would love it if we were silent about this and just let them unfairly make us pay thousands of more dollars to the school per year. Remember that the administration works for the students, not for themselves. We also need to join forces with the parents, many of whom help fund their children’s education. Since we pay to go here, we have the power to say “no” to an increase, and the time to do that is now. We need to demand that Muhlenberg rescind the 5% increase, and then freeze the tuition rate so that it remains at its current level. Moreover, we need to demand that our school take serious steps at reducing its cost of attendance, which would ease the financial burden on families. If Muhlenberg truly wants us to be leaders, then our school should lead by example in their field through refusing to contribute to America’s destructive education price bubble.