Students Question Tuition Increase

By Joseph Palmer, COM 301
Edited and posted by Issac Jessup, COM 303

With the announcement of the new tuition for the 2008-2009 school year, Berry College students have mixed feelings about having to pay $2000 more for their education.

“Go farther into debt...essentially,” was one student’s quick-witted answer when asked how the tuition increases would affect him.

Berry College students are now faced with reality of a tuition increase for the upcoming school year. With the recent letter President Stephen Briggs addressed to students and their parents, a lot of students have been left feeling as though they’re in the dark as to what exactly the tuition increase will be used for.

“In the letter I sent out to students earlier, I mentioned the chief reason: our costs go up due to modest salary increases for faculty and staff salaries as well as increased costs for energy and gasoline, building maintenance, IT equipment, library books and so on,” said Briggs.

The majority of Berry students, however, sees this as insufficient and would like a more thorough breakdown of where the money will be going; some, like Michael Wise, a sophomore biochemistry major, even find the lack there of somewhat disconcerting.

“Seems slightly suspicions,” said Wise. “They all sound like good reasons; I would like to know what percentages are going to what.”

However, for students like Amanda Griswell, a sophomore public relations major, there was a basic understanding that Berry's tuition was bound to go up sometime.

“As long as they’re going to account for [the tuition increases]. I understand that the professors need raises,” said Griswell. “It's just that they have to think about the student to.”

Assistant Vice President for Finance Scott Shank said he believes Berry is doing its best to keep the students financial situations in mind. Shank added that Berry was taking big steps to insure that student’s financial needs were being attended to.

“Please be mindful that almost no student pays the full cost of tuition and fees at Berry,” said Shank. “Berry is very generous with its financial aid awards to students. In fact, we are more generous than most of our peer and aspirant institutions.

Operating costs for Berry are expected to go up approximately $2 million this year from last year, said Shank.

“This year, we are expecting the operating costs to end the year at approximately $60.75 million of which only approximately $18.90 million will be funded by net tuition and fees,” said Shank. “Hopefully, as students understand that Berry is already using its endowment to offset the cost of tuition and fees before financial aid by $9,000 to $10,000 per student, they will understand how fair Berry is trying to be”

Since there is going to be an increase in tuition, many students would like to have a better understanding of where their money will be going.

“Even though I'm not happy about the tuition increases, I understand,” said Griswell. “It would be nice if they would tell us exactly what our money is going for and a breakdown of what our tuition is covering.”

Jesse Milby, the SGA vice president of student services, said that he was troubled with the tuition increase.

“I'm not real thrilled with it, because frankly I feel a lot of it is going to stuff we don't need; we don't care about,” said Milby.

Many students said that they were not very surprised at all about the increase. In fact, students like Tim Martin, a junior middle-grades education major, said that the new tuition increase would have little or no affect on him personally.

“I mean, I guess it’s just the cost of going to Berry; going to a private school,” said Martin. “You’re going to be paying some money. You make the choice...”

With the help of scholarship programs like that of The Bonner Scholar's program, Griswell said she believes she will come through unscathed. The Bonner Scholar’s program is a financial aid program at Berry which provides students with scholarships that cover an individually set portion of their tuition—no matter what—as long as they work a certain amount of time during a given semester.

“I don't think it will actually affect me all that much 'cause with Bonner; I mean the same stuff is going to be covered,” said Griswell.

Students have the hopes that, even though tuition is going up, Berry will still be able to provide them the means of some type of financial assistance to make up for the increase.

“In terms of Berry, just as we done in the past, we award aid based [on] a student's demonstrated need as a results of filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA),” said Ron Elmore, director of financial aid at Berry. “So whether the tuition goes up a dollar or $1,800, our procedure remains the same. We do the best we can do with the limited dollars that we have to meet the demonstrated need of those students [who] file for need-based aid.”

Briggs said that the process that developed the new tuition started with a budget committee, chaired by Brian Erb, the vice president of finance, and made up of senior college leaders, faculty, staff and two students. They looked over all the college's costs, needs and the different sources of income that Berry has. They then decide on a budget to which they recommend to the college cabinet and then Briggs recommended that to the Board of Trustees. They then had the final say on whether or not a tuition increase was necessary.