Tell the truth about tuition

Quick, what's the cost of four years of undergraduate tuition at Penn? Easy question, right? Just multiply this year's tuition by four years, and you get something like $136,000. Oh, but you couldn't be more wrong. The real total, we can reasonably predict, is somewhere around $147,200 -- once you figure in the annual 5 percent increase.

But then, that's pure speculation about the future.

It's also exactly what's wrong with the prevailing system of financing higher education in America.

The cost of tuition and fees at Penn have increased some 21 percent since I arrived here as a freshman. What's concerning about this is not wholly the increase itself, but the difference between the two cost figures I mentioned above, some $10,600.

It's one thing for Penn and others to raise the cost of their services over time. It's another to go about it in the backhanded manner of disguising the true total cost of a four-year education. That is downright dishonest.

Beyond just the growing tuition, those who depend on financial aid see their grants and loans recalculated each year such that any kind of planning is nearly impossible. How is a high school senior supposed to make a decision about whether or not Penn is affordable without complete information?

For those in the top income brackets, all of this tuition math means very little. Anyone with $136,624 burning a hole in his pocket can pay the full Penn tuition up front, thus avoiding the 21-percent price hike. Their accumulated wealth affords them the security of knowing for certain what college will cost.

The rest of us, however, are at the mercy of the financial services office as to what the tuition bill will be. At the current rate of growth, incoming freshmen next year will be paying more than $39,500 before they graduate. By the time they collect their caps and gowns, they will end up paying $10,600 more than their well-heeled colleagues.

Doesn't that seem a little backward?

After all, tuition increases are not inherently bad; they serve to siphon more money from those who can afford it to subsidize those who cannot. Why, then, offer a price break to those who are largely indifferent to tuition hikes while at the same time playing games with those who really need financial stability? Financial aid recipients, it seems, are getting the short end of the stick.

Bill Schilling, the University's director of student financial aid, says many factors influence how aid is calculated, such as family income and assets, as well as siblings who may be entering or leaving college. That aid is re-evaluated each year, he says, because family situations change.

"We don't know everything that's going to happen," he said.

But outside of parents losing their jobs or receiving enormous bonuses, just about everything else is predictable. So why shouldn't financial aid and tuition be a four-year commitment that students and families can count on?

Schilling suggested multiplying the expected family contribution by four would give a fair estimate. My parents thought so as well.

Around this time four years ago, we received a statement from Penn explaining what to budget for educational and other expenses as well as what the school was willing to chip in. Based on that, we came up with a total and determined how we were going to come up with the money.

Now that the last statement from the Franklin Building has come, we can see how wrong we were. After the rise in tuition and a decline in aid, my family came up about $21,800 short. No small chunk of change, considering I could have paid for a complete education at a public university for less than that and had money for books.

Administrators like University President Amy Gutmann, who are staking their reputations on making Penn more accessible, should find these figures troubling. My parents certainly did.

While Schilling says the aid office doesn't "change the rules in the middle of the game," the net effect of rising costs and refiguring grants is exactly that.

And the current pricing scheme is just silly. The fact that Penn will charge $34,156 in tuition next year is meaningless because no one purchases one year of college. The same goes for financial aid.

Since an undergraduate degree takes four years to complete, in just about every case, a fairer way to do things would be to tell the truth up front about what a degree will really cost -- give families a figure they can "take to the bank."

Part of this should involve eliminating the scheme of ratcheting up tuition each year while students are in school. For example, the Class of 2010 would pay $34,156 all four years, while the Class of 2011 would pay 5 percent more, and so on. This would cost Penn about $27 million in lost revenue, or about 3.6 percent of the total tuition collected for each class.

While that's a lot of money for the University, it does not compare, in relative terms, to the financial stability it affords Penn families.

It's also a more honest way to do business.

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