Calvin should grandfather students into their entry tuition price
Every year,students see the cost of tuition rise. It’s not by relatively huge amounts, but for the students and parents who are paying, $1,500 can still be significant. With the rising cost of higher education, many universities have decided to freeze tuition. Liberty University, Purdue University, Grand Canyon University, College of William and Mary and Southern New Hampshire University are examples among many, many others. Some of these schools have frozen tuition due to the economic strain imposed on students by the coronavirus, but others have simply realized that tuition freezing is good for both students and the school, as a tuition freeze can be a big selling point to potential students.
While freezing tuition might not be the best option for Calvin, one possible option might be to grandfather students into tuition. Every few years, Calvin increases the amount students receive in scholarships. This is to offset the annual tuition increases.. Despite tuition increasing every year, the scholarships of current students do not increase. Although they do have the opportunity to get more private Calvin scholarships, many are not fortunate enough to receive any, and if they do, all it really does is offset the increase of tuition, and students must pay the same amount as the year before. Once a student begins attending a university, leaving is often the last thing they want to do. But due to increases in tuition every year, students are forced to make increasingly more difficult decisions about how they are going to pay, if they even can.
Grandfathering tuition would allow the administration to continue to increase prices, but only for incoming classes. A $1,500 increase might only apply to incoming freshmen but is announced and known before they commit. Calvin would still have the opportunity to increase tuition without current students needing to scramble to figure out how to pay for the increase. This grandfathering might sound unfair or unequal, but I believe properly done, it is the fairest policy. I began my journey at Calvin expecting to pay X every year. The incoming freshmen will begin their journey expecting to pay Y every year. Let me pay X and let them pay Y, or be honest and let students know before committing that they will have to pay a tuition increase every year. It is only fair.
Conrad Van Haitsma • Sep 14, 2020 at 4:45 pm
Here’s a “math problem” and true as well.
A Calvin graduate, who is currently 81 years old, graduated in the early 1960’s and promptly got a job at a small Christian School right out of Calvin. The school was located in a small prairie town called Corsica, South Dakota. His first year’s salary was four times the cost of one year’s tuition at Calvin College. Fast forward to today; and think of the likelihood of this scenario, a 2020 graduate of Calvin with an education degree obtains a job at a small rural Christian school and is paid a starting salary of $145,200 a year. There’s the “math problem”. It’s not sustainable.
Another true “math problem”
Two men, both born in 1939 – attend Calvin College. They marry – start families – and between the two families have eight children combined. Of the eight children- seven attend Calvin College during the 1980’s – until the early 1990’s. (An eighty seven and a half percent attendance rate to a family-legacy school is something any college would kill for in today’s world.) Fast forward three decades, today, the two families now have a combined number of nineteen grandchildren. Of those nineteen, thirteen have or have already attended college. Of those thirteen, ….. one….. one grandchild so far has chosen Calvin…. one! (93% of the grandchildren at this point have chosen NOT to attend Calvin) The answer to this “math problem” lies in the earlier math problem stated above.
Josiah Vis • Aug 26, 2020 at 9:10 pm
I have to pay 1,700 more this year. Ridiculous! I didn’t even know this would happen