As tuition continues to rise at Tufts, students start to ask themselves what they are paying for. Tufts students are now facing a price tag of $51,088 for tuition, fees and room and board, making Tufts the most expensive school in Massachusetts and the 20th in the nation. But Tufts' high tuition price is not arbitrary. Students pay high tuition in order to receive a top-quality, private education from a university with an elite reputation, and Tufts' tuition prices are consistent with the market price for such a college experience.
Tufts tuition understandably strikes us as high, but Tufts is not unique among its peer institutions in charging more than $50,000. Our tuition may be slightly higher than Harvard University's or other peer institutions', but most elite private schools in the United States are approaching or have already passed the $50,000 mark. Tuition increases fund construction projects that keep Tufts' buildings and facilities up-to-date and create an aesthetically pleasing campus environment — especially important because of the emphasis that prospective students often place on a college's "feel" and atmosphere. The recent renovations to Packard Hall cost the university $7.1 million.
Some students would gladly sacrifice such projects in order to cut tuition costs, but sacrificing these initiatives would mean Tufts' ranking among its peer institutions would slip. Tufts would no longer be as attractive in the competitive marketplace of higher education if it did not offer the high-quality facilities and resources that peer institutions boast. Part of Tufts' tuition pays for the return students get from enjoying Tufts' elite reputation and status. Furthermore, in order to recruit and maintain professors who are in the top in their field, Tufts must be able to offer salaries that compete with those offered at institutions with endowments many times greater — and it must provide astronomically expensive laboratory equipment to its natural sciences and engineering professors. Tufts must maintain a large full-time faculty in order to keep class sizes small and maintain high levels of individual student attention.
Ultimately, Tufts students get what they pay for, even if part of what they are paying for is the somewhat intangible "brand name." Some of the areas on which Tufts spends tuition money do not directly impact students' education, and seem superfluous to students. Investment in these areas, though, does allow Tufts to maintain its rank among its peer institutions — and by choosing a private university like Tufts, we have chosen to pay for that status.
Sixty percent of college students in the United States borrow money to fund their education, and the average debt per borrower in 2007 was $22,700. Paying for a college degree, let alone a college degree from an expensive private university like Tufts, presents a tremendous financial strain on students. One year at Tufts costs almost exactly what the typical American family earns in one year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's median household income statistics. The services Tufts offers — a top-level education, outstanding faculty and impressive facilities — come at a steep price. The university guarantees to meet 100 percent of students' demonstrated needs, but this still often leaves students and their families with a substantial burden.
Unfortunately, students looking for a place to lay the blame for the high cost of receiving a top-quality college education cannot turn solely to Tufts. Instead, they should direct their focus toward the United States' higher education system, the world's most academically prolific and arguably most innovative, but also the most beholden to capitalism's unrelenting and unpredictable will. The federal government has a responsibility to examine the flaws of the higher education system; Tufts is merely one of many elite private universities that compete to offer a top product at a high market price.
