For the second year in a row, President Barack Obama called for affordable college degrees in his 2013 state of the union (SOTU) address last Tuesday night, and oddly enough Milligan College’s recently increased tuition looks like a good buy according to White House records.
“Colleges must do their part to keep costs down, and it’s our job to make sure they do,” said Obama, according to the SOTU transcript. “…I ask Congress to change the Higher Education Act, so that affordability and value are included in determining which colleges receive certain types of federal aid.”
Those words seem to be an echo of last year’s SOTU, in which he urged Congress to extend legislation keeping interest rates of student loans from doubling. In the same address, Obama urged higher-education institutions to begin slashing their own tuition. If institutions did not begin to internally cut prices, Obama threatened to cut government aid.
Though Congress extended lower student loans last July, college tuition is still on the up-and-up, depending upon how you look at it.
Milligan students may be all too familiar with the upswing of tuition, as Milligan’s increased 5.97 percent from Fall 2011 to Fall 2012.
In hopes of ceasing the tuition climb, the Obama administration released online college scorecards that profile school costs, graduation rates, and average debit levels of students.
Surprisingly, Milligan scored fairly well.
Comparatively, the average net price for Milligan undergraduate students fell in the middle range of college and university costs across the nation. On top of that, 65 percent of all Milligan undergraduate students graduate within four years, and only four percent of students could not repay their loan debts when it came time to pay up.
Appalachian Athletic Conference Breakdown:
Yes, a Milligan education is an expensive one compared to community colleges and middle-range state schools like East Tennessee State University, where 44.4 percent of undergraduate students graduate within four years. However, according to numbers given by the White House’s College Affordability and Transparency Center, the average amount an undergraduate student would pay at Milligan falls under the average cost of all Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) Schools, which Milligan is a member of.
Milligan Yearly Average: $15,840
AAC Conference Average: $18,766
Milligan’s four-year graduate rate is also higher than any other conference school.
To see the average yearly cost for undergraduate students in AAC schools and other schools around the nation click here. Then type the name of the school you want to pull up numbers on.
Compare Milligan cost to other schools before you complain.
It is my guess that many Milligan students are looking toward the pretty, purple papered residential buildings being constructed toward the back of campus as if they might have something to do with the increase.
In talking with Jacqui Steadman, Milligan vice president of finance, my eyes were directed toward the yearly increases of employee wages, health insurance plans, and campus utilities as being the main reason for the upturn.
All colleges and universities pay employees, provide health insurance, and cover utilities, so don’t they have to compensate for the inflation? One would think they would. Otherwise, how could they adhere to Obama’s call to slash tuition?
If mundane costs are rising yearly, then it is fair that tuition does the same. New dorms are not mundane, however. The lines do not seem to line up in my head. If mundane expenses are rising, institutions should not be expected to drop their charge. On the other hand, if extraneous expenditures are causing the tuition climb, does the expedition need to halt?
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