Zachary Noyce | Everyday low prices

About once a month or so, I like to go into the Financial Aid office to ask a question or two - and to remind them that I am still desperately poor.

So just in case they happen to have a couple thousand dollars that they're looking to give out, I'm their guy.

I walk in and tell one of the two receptionists I have some questions. She tells me to swipe my PennCard. Like magic, my name appears on three computer monitors with a half-dozen other students proudly announcing they can't afford a Penn education either.

I sit in the waiting area and watch the Food Network on two (Count 'em: two) giant flat-screen TVs mounted on opposite walls in the 35-square-foot area.

And I can't help but wonder: If Penn cared a little more about affordability and a little less about some other things, would I need to be here?

A Penn education doesn't come cheap, and Bachelors degrees in general don't either these days. But while Ivy League PR departments announce kinder financial aid policies, they miss the bigger picture. College affordability has more to do with price than discounts.

That's why there has been so much discussion on Capitol Hill and elsewhere about what needs to be done in order to make sure that a college education is within everyone's reach.

There have been a number of proposals from the federal government, and nearly all of them have been met with the kind of hostility typified by our own Madame President, Amy Gutmann.

"I don't think that Washington," she told the DP in November, "has the knowledge or the flexibility to determine payouts on the basis of what's in the best interests of our students or our faculty or our donors."

Well, I don't know that jacking up costs at roughly twice the rate of inflation is in the best interest of students either, so I'll take whatever advocate I can get.

Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a Washington-based think-tank, is bothered by this attitude in the higher-ed community. "The arrogance of most university officials is deplorable," he told me. They "hold out their hands to the federal government, asking for money. Yet ask them to account for anything and they'll say, 'How dare you?'"

A serious academic and professor for 42 years, Vedder isn't convinced that there is any one solution to the problem. What he does know is it won't go away on its own because "the cost of an education is really a secondary concern to most secondary schools."

Penn is quick to boast about its Roger Clemens-esque endowment growth. And for good reason. At 66 million Benjamins, the ninth-largest university endowment in the country is nothing to scoff at. Yet, when college affordability comes up, Penn administrators immediately point out that this is only about $315,000 per-student (I accept cash, check or PayPal). That figure is good for 61st in endowment per capita.

They're right to emphasize that Penn doesn't have the resources of some of its peers. Princeton has an endowment of more that $2 million-per-student and Harvard's figure is fast approaching $2 million-per-student as well. But while we may be south of those schools, we're sitting a lot prettier than state colleges with their slice-of-wonder-bread-per-student endowments.

Director of Student Financial Aid, Bill Schilling told me that Penn is "much more reliant on tuition" than many of its peers, yet he remains firm in his resolve to increase affordability.

Likewise, Bonnie Gibson, vice president of budget and management analysis, emphasizes, "We are part of an exceptionally small group of institutions that make a commitment to meet the financial needs of our students."

"I think that discussion of affordability in the public arena is misplaced," Schilling continued. "It's too much on sticker price and not enough on financial aid."

He believes that efforts to increase financial aid are the answer, not reducing the actual price of higher education.

But something's wrong with that approach. "Sticker price is far more important than university officials would have you believe," Vedder says, especially given the fact that students can't know what their price will be until accepted. It's another example of universities' "unwillingness to justify their own behavior to the public."

And until Penn and other Ivies focus on what matters - keeping prices down - they have no right to complain when Congress, higher-ed organizations and students demand an explanation.

Zachary Noyce is a College junior from Salt Lake City, Utah. His e-mail is noyce@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Stormin' Mormon appears Mondays.

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