Financing a post-secondary education is becoming more expensive every year. However, as tuition costs rise, so have the average incomes of incoming freshmen's families. Today's freshmen are financially much better off than previous generations, according to a report from the University of California at Los Angeles. Students claim they see evidence of this trend at AU as well.
The average college student comes from a family whose income is more than 1.5 times the national average, according to the report by UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Informational Studies.
The report, "American Freshmen: Forty-Year Trends, 1966-2006," claims today's college freshmen come from families with median incomes 60 percent higher than the national average of $44,400. The current median income of such families is approximately $74,000 per year, whereas in 1971 it was $13,200 - $66,200 in 2006 dollars, 46 percent above the national average.
According to the College Board's 2005-2006 Annual Survey of Colleges, only 2 percent of all full-time undergraduates at four-year institutions are enrolled in schools like AU, where tuition costs range from $27,000 to $29,999.
AU tuition costs as listed in the 2006-2007 University Catalog totaled $29,206 per year, a 13 percent increase from tuition cost levels in 2005, and a 263 percent increase from those of 1977. Records of this data were attained by The Eagle, courtesy of the University Archives and Special Collections office. These amounts do not reflect other costs of room, board and additional mandatory fees; however they do account for inflation. In this period of time education costs went up less than general inflation, which rose about 345 percent from 1977 to 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The ever-increasing tuition costs are reflective of increasing median incomes. AU's tuition costs mirror an ever-growing upper-middle class income rate.
According to the report by UCLA's Cooperative Institutional Research Program, "The increase in [upper-middle class] income outpaced the national average by a two-to-one ratio and accelerated during the mid-1980s," a time when the average tuition of private four-year institutions also increased by 36 percent.
With 5,550 primarily upper-middle class undergraduates enrolled at AU, according to the 2006-2007 university catalog, some students claim to notice the money floating around.
"People here are a lot less prudent spending their money than the more conscious atmosphere I'm used to," said Joey Dicolandrea, a freshman in the School of Public Affairs.
While spending habits certainly vary among individual students, Sara Spethmann, a German freshman in the School of International Science, said foreign students are more conscious of their economic status.
"The international students are more aware of their status and tend to have more exorbitant spending habits than others," Spethmann said.
Susan Dworkin, an AU alumna who graduated in 1975, recalled in a phone interview that students were in a similar financial situation during her time at AU.
"[There were] lots of upper-class and international students who had no problems with money and spent it freely," Dworkin said.
According to the Interim President's Annual Budget Report, a copy of which was supplied to The Eagle by the University Archives Office, AU offered $66,316 in need-based financial aid in 2006; $64,043.31 in 2005; and $62,116.21 in 2004. This amount has also seen a great increase compared to its 1977 level of $11,084 (all amounts given in 2006 dollars).
"Sixty-six percent of admitted freshmen received some form of financial aid and/or merit scholarship [in 2006]," according to the AU admission department Web site.
However, not everyone is content with this amount.
Tony Owusu, a sophomore in the School of Communication and sole financer of his post-secondary education, said he believes "there are schools like AU, for example, that don't give enough financial aid because they want to up their prestige. They want all the upper- and upper-middle class kids to go here."
Owusu said he only stays at AU because of its renowned journalism program.
