The tuition ***SHOULD*** continue rising untill it is equal to the actual cost of Williams education (which is, curently, cc. $80K). Why should a kid of a Goldman banker be getting a $35K subsidy per year?

Since the tuition accross the colleges is rising faster than inflation for X years now, it is bound to happen. And it will.

To the Classes of 2008, 2009, and 2010:

After careful deliberation, the Board of Trustees has set the comprehensive fee for 2007-08.

It breaks down as follows:
Tuition $35,438
Board $4,660
Room $4,810
Activities and Residential House Fees $232

Total $45,140

This 5.8% increase leaves our total fee among the lowest of the country’s most selective colleges and universities. When combined with endowment income and gifts to the College, it will enable us to continue to strengthen the very high quality of education we offer our students. One of our goals is for the present always to be the best time that it has ever been to be a Williams student.

Williams remains committed to meeting the full demonstrated need of all new and returning students, including those whose family circumstances may have changed in the past year. If you believe you may qualify for financial aid for the first time, please contact the financial aid office as soon as possible.

A version of this letter has gone to your parents. In it, I told them that we at the College, remain privileged to have such bright and dedicated students as members of this community of learning. We know the sacrifices they make to provide you a Williams education and work hard to repay the enormous trust those sacrifices represent. I hope that you’re similarly grateful to your parents for the educational opportunities they’ve afforded you and similarly vocal in expressing to them your thanks.

Best regards,

M. Schapiro

I presume this is all in context of other colleges doing the same. Williams is still one of the five best undergrad experiences in the entire country.

If Williams wants to play with the big boys, eventually it might have to do what Harvard did and kill loans entirely for people with incomes below a certain range (40k or something). I also wonder about the squeeze on the well-off-but-not-very-rich (say taking home 120k a year with 3 kids). A full ride to your flagship state university suddenly looks a lot more appealing (though, obviously, if every private school has so raised prices, it’s not like we’re losing kids to Amherst).

Or, Williams could do like Princeton and just lie. Princeton circulated a press release saying that they would have no tuition increase this year. Got quite a few newspaper stories about the effort to hold the line on prices.

Of course, the newspapers failed to note that a whopping room and board hike increased the total nut by 4.5%.

I really detest colleges behaving like con men.

Williams could, and should, charge next to nothin´g. The cash there is made by wealthy doners anyhow. Can you imagine how much more people would give, if it was free or nearly free to go to Williams? Can you imagine the applications? Can you imagine the students they could attract, and the publicicty?

No free lunch you say? Well…. there are other things the school could do so the students do not get a “free” ride. Community service? Or perhaps they could charge 5k a year to every student, just to keep everyone honest?

I haven’t run this year’s numbers, but using the 2004 Annual Report:

If Williams stopped charging students, they would have to cut their annual per student spending from $67k to $41k per year. Given the components of the college budget, the only way to achieve a $25k reduction in per student spending would be a dramatic decrease in the size of the faculty. Just based on other schools with per student spending of $41k, you would probably see the student faculty ratio jump from 8:1 to 12:1. It would be a very different college.

I would actually recommend going the opposite direction. Raise the sticker price to $60,000 a year and let the customers who are ready and willing to pay for Williams prestige further subsidize those who cannot afford it.

Since low income students already pay very low prices, eliminating all student charges is, in effect, a tax cut for the wealthy.

Note that the room and board is less, after inflation, than 20 years ago. Tuition is up more than 300%! Either there are some very wealthy professors now, or the money is going… where?

It is simplistic in the extreme to look at sticker prices and draw conclusions about college revenues. As simplistic as looking at full published same-day purchase fares and wondering why the airlines can’t make money when they “charge” $1200 to fly from Philly to Miami.

As for actual increased costs, there are many areas. College education is highly labor intensive, thus costs of benefits for that labor pool have far outpaced inflation.

Colleges offer more programs today than 20 years ago. Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, etc.

Colleges are more diverse today. Diversity costs money, both in terms of financial aid and support services.

Today’s college consumers demand a more luxury-oriented product. When I was at Williams, we did not have flat panel TVs in the dorms for drunken students to break.