what's with the extra fee to take some classes?

coldcomfort
Sat, 11 Jun 2005 21:33:20 +0000

Sybbie wrote that: Contrary to what you think it cost more than $40,000 per year to educate a student at Darmouth , the other Ivies, Williams and similiar schools. So everyone begins with a subsidy.

I’ve heard this quite a bit and I wonder, is this really true? Let’s say that everyone paid full freight, no financial aid (and please, don’t attack me for this, since I won’t be going ANYWHERE without financial aid!) Would $40,000 really not cover costs if the interest genenerated from the endowment were free to be used solely to offset operating expenses and none were needed to subsidize tuition? I ask this because Sybbie’s response got me thinking and I remember reading in the newspaper a year or so ago about a parent who tried to claim a certain portion of his kid’s tution as a charitable contribution on his income tax. His claim, which he backed up with figures (whether or not they were accurate I don’t know) was that if it weren’t for financial aid his son’s tuition would be less and the “difference” was actually a charitable contribution that he was being forced to make for someone else’'s education. Interesting, but is that accurate?