I don’t know about the rest of you, but the college administration has really been an annoyance to me lately, specifically on the point of tuition.
Last week, I heard that Guilford’s administration approved a tuition increase for the 2003-2004 year. After doing some journalistic snooping around, I learned that the college is increasing tuition by an average of 4% for every student.
To be fair, the administration does rely on tuition for an enormous part of the college’s revenue. According to a statement by Ty Buckner, the Director of College Relations, tuition and fees count for approximately _ of the college’s monetary intake.
In the same statement by Buckner, the increase in Guilford’s tuition is expected to be under the national average for independent colleges for the second year running. Our tuition was raised last year by 3.8%, compared to the average rate of 5.8%.
Even allowing that Guilford is much less financially demanding than most independent colleges, I’m still not happy with this increase in tuition.
I am one of the students on campus who relies on work-study and other scholarships for a large part of my tuition, and such an increase worries me.
Including room and board, the projected cost for tuition and fees will be about $24,960 next year, and that’s a lot of money. I’m sure we all know that Guilford does all it can to help, and I appreciate that; however, this tuition increase adds over $1,000 to the cost of coming to school here.
Can Guilford deal with students who will need more financial aid to continue attending college?
I really shouldn’t complain; there must be students here who are much more worried about the tuition increase than I am.
Nevertheless, I hope the administration will keep in mind that not everyone who studies here can afford to simply write off another thousand dollars because Guilford needs more money.