On March 23, North Central students let out a collective groan as they were greeted with President Troy Hammond’s annual email detailing the tuition increase for the following school year. This year the increase held steady at 3 percent, bringing the College a mere $101 from breaking the $50,000 mark.
But don’t worry, this “equals the smallest percentage tuition increase in decades” boasted Hammond in his email. Perhaps that’s really where students’ discontent for annual tuition increases lies: with the upbeat nature of these emails, something that never fails.
Around the same time in 2015, students received a similar email revealing a 3.5 percent increase in tuition for the 2015-2016 academic year, or “the smallest percentage tuition increase in many years.” The following year was no different, another 3.5 percent increase for the 2016-2017 academic year; but this time it was touted as the “smallest percentage tuition increase in decades.” And when the tuition increase dropped half a percent for the current academic year, Hammond once again celebrated it as the “smallest percentage tuition increase in decades” (perhaps he forgot to change his template?).
Across the board, these emails are remarkably redundant. Each highlight a few changes to the campus during the school year and attempt to reassure students that college is worth it. This year, Hammond wrote, “Research continues to demonstrate that a college education is one of the most rewarding investments you can make-not just for your career, but in the quality of the life that you will lead” (this is verbatim from last year’s email, once again, reinforcing the idea that he forgot to change his template).
The other problem with these emails is that it seems to insult students’ intelligence. They provide the tuition increase as a percentage, rather than a monetary figure. It’s a little misleading to use this format because the percentage of increase can remain the same, even though tuition is increasing by a greater value. For example, tuition costs increased by $1,095 from last year to this year, but it’s increasing by $1,131 for next year. Again, same percentage increase, but different dollar value.
Typically, Hammond focused on the tuition increase, while placing the increase in room and board on the periphery. While the two typically go hand in hand, that isn’t the case for next year, with tuition increasing by 3 percent while room and board are increasing by about 3.46 percent, the most in the last four years.
One final tidbit about these emails: Hammond has neglected to include the total cost in the emails the past two years, something he used to do. Of course, that amount can quickly be found by punching a few numbers on the calculator, but it does seem odd.
At the end of the day, Hammond was correct when he wrote in his 2015 email that North Central sits at a “lower total cost that most of our peer schools in the Midwest.” Carthage College will cost $55,540 to attend next year, while Augustana College will be a little cheaper at $52,707. Even so, when you think about how much money students are spending — money they typically don’t have — any increase seems preposterous.
