Each day, University of Denver students pass by the up-and-coming International Studies building just across from Ben M. Cherrington Hall, and likely swear to themselves that it has gotten bigger since yesterday.
There is another thing that has also seemingly grown since yesterday to many – the DU tuition bill.
The price tag on the place over 5,000 undergraduate students call home has increased a whopping 5 percent this year, according to an official letter mailed to permanent residences by the university this past year. This rise brings the 2015-16 school year tuition and fees to be $44,178, and estimated cost of attendance to $61,460. This number is only expected to go up from there in the coming years. This is not right. $61,460 is just too high of a number to not know how it will grow and impact you in the future.
As eager seniors in high school, students call the idea of deciding on a college “committing.” They are bound to the place they send their deposit to. It is the next four years of their lives. It is baffling that the permanence of it all stops at tuition, arguably the most potentially important thing to commit to.
When students decide to attend a university, they should sign a document that ensures a flat tuition rate for the duration of the typical four-year-long undergraduate education.
There is no reason universities can’t make this important expense more predictable and easier on college students and their families. Sure, each graduating class may pay a different number, but at least they would fully know what they’re getting into for the duration of their college expenses.
While the University of Denver is a wonderful place that is easy to grow attached to, being at the mercy of any price tag increase the institution chooses to inflict upon families each year is unsettling. More than unsettling, it is wrong. The class of 2018 didn’t commit to DU because there was a new international studies building being built. They didn’t commit to DU because of the new engineering building. The students of next year, you ask? Maybe they will. And, in business student terms, that product and price should be presented to them.
