Bleeding tuition dollars

Families are asked to fork over even more in tuition as cost of attendance was hiked yet again in the wake of a recent Board of Trustees meeting. The increase of 4 percent in undergraduate tuition—a difference of nearly $2,000—brings the total price tag for a Duke diploma to $63,273, the highest in the University’s history. Though we appreciate that the University requires resources to function, we find a number of problems with the incessant upward trend in tuition.

In recent years, the cost of college has spiraled toward exorbitant new heights. At the turn of the century, the total cost of attendance was $31,839, just over half of Duke’s current price. Though tuition increased at a slightly faster rate in the 2000s—between 2002 and 2012 the average increase was 4.46 percent—the current rate will result in a six figure annual cost in just 12 years. Assuming the current trajectory, it will take only 18 years for Duke’s tuition to double. In the past 30 years, college prices have increased 1,200 percent. The U.S. inflation rate, by contrast, is -0.1 percent.

The spiraling trajectory of tuition will continue to make college unaffordable to students, especially in the current climate of rising student debt. The total student loan debt in the U.S. exceeds $1.2 trillion, a troubling number for people struggling more to pay off their loans than their homes. Even though tuition hikes are often accompanied by promises of more generous financial aid packages, they may not be commensurate, and rising costs pinch those on the fringes of qualifying for aid.

If the pattern of rising costs is problematic, Duke’s justifications for it are both weak and vague. The University’s rationale that the hikes are what our peer institutions do and what has been done in the past are inadequate claims that ignore the reality of the situation and problem. If Duke hopes to be a leader, rather than a follower, in the sphere of higher education, serious self-reflection on how to address an otherwise unsustainable increase in cost is necessary. An accompanying claim that rising costs enhance the broader Duke experience is also insufficient. Current students bearing the brunt of the University’s ambitious future plans are rightfully skeptical of administrative claims of caring about the student experience. After all, campus construction projects seem to crop up with no communication of plans, updates on progress or any amount of student input or concern about quality of student life. The main entrance to the Bryan Center, for example, will be closed for the remainder of the year—the latest major hindrance to the flow of daily student life.

Albeit, the opportunities afforded to students are immense: The recent growth and expansion of programs like DukeEngage, Bass Connections and research grants, for example, are laudable perks to being a Duke student. Yet, due to a lack of transparency and communication, students are left in the dark as to where their additional tuition dollars are being spent—and, indeed, if the hikes are necessary. Until students are shown how their increased tuition dollars directly enhance their Duke experience, as the administration claims, the hikes will continue to be problematic and unjustified.