home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=92TT0781>
- <title>
- Apr. 13, 1992: Where Does Your Tuition Go?
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Apr. 13, 1992 Campus of the Future
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- EDUCATION, Page 57
- COVER STORIES
- Where Does Your Tuition Go?
- </hdr><body>
- <p> In the cafeterias, the food is overstarchy, underflavored and
- generally lacking in nutritional value. Lecture halls are so
- cavernous and overcrowded that binoculars may be required to
- read the lips of the professor. Dormitory rooms, carefully
- modeled after prison cells, are strictly BYOB: bring your own
- bookshelves, blankets, bulletin boards.
- </p>
- <p> For $15,165 a year, you were expecting linen service?
- </p>
- <p> Tuition at private colleges, along with room and board
- fees, rose dramatically during the past decade, easily outpacing
- the rate of inflation. Tuition was one cash cow that
- universities could milk through the '80s, especially after the
- recession dried up public funding and endowment returns. The
- tuition free-for-all, however, was not cost free. Each time
- tuition went up, more incoming students required financial
- assistance, and many of those already paying their own way
- suddenly needed aid. To cover the rising bills, universities--you guessed it--often raised tuition again. As of 1986, 38%
- of all public-university students and 65% at private
- institutions received assistance; figures to be released later
- this year are expected to show little change.
- </p>
- <p> Tuition revenues usually go into general funds, which pay
- for everything from staff salaries to cutting the grass. To
- keep high-paying industries from plucking off promising science
- talent, universities must provide laboratories furnished with
- state-of-the-art equipment. To achieve prestige, many schools
- engage in bidding wars for big-name professors who command
- $100,000 salaries. Faculty salaries rose through the '80s to
- make up for lagging paychecks a decade earlier; benefits and
- health care also escalated.
- </p>
- <p> As high as tuitions now are, they will continue to climb.
- The hikes, which last year averaged 15% at public schools and
- 7% at private institutions, will be repeated in the coming year.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-