October 27, 2008
GWU No Longer Most Expensive School in the Country
... it's the second most expensive! Via Consumerist, we learn that Sarah Lawrence College has surpassed George Washington University as the most expensive college in the United States, when combining tuition and room and board. The difference is not just mere pennies, either: Sarah Lawrence now costs $53,166 total for one year, while George Washington runs $50,312. The even bigger drop is in the tuition-only category, which finds GWU knocked down to #6 on the list, while small schools like Bates and Middlebury climbed the ranks. Of course, attending GWU still costs rather a lot of money, no matter how you slice it, but at least it no longer holds the distinction of being the absolute most expensive. In related news: OMFG does it cost a lot of money to go to a private university these days!
| 
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
[ report this ]
wow, and to think i remember thinking i was selling my soul when i wrote a check for something just under $3000 to pay for tuition and fees for a semester of school...
[ report this ]
See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you're gonna start doing some thinking on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One, don't do that. And Two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fucking education you coulda' got for a doller fifty in late charges at the public library.
[ report this ]
Steven Joel Trachtenberg leaves GW and the school drops down to #2 on the expensive colleges list?
Clearly his replacement Steve Knapp is falling down on the job.
[ report this ]
As a member of the class of '08, the year to year distinction of being the country's most expensive didn't matter much being as GW utilizes fixed tuition (at least they did when I enrolled in Fall '04 - not so sure now), meaning my tuition was locked at whatever it was in AY 04-05 (high $40s w/ r&b). Needless to say, it wasn't much cheaper than the tuition of, say, the class of 2011. But, laughing rights nonetheless.
[ report this ]
You know, this should make me happy. But the way I'm looking at it, GWU just lost its only #1 ranking.
[ report this ]
I do have a few more months until Sallie and Chase start calling in their massive loans to me. But, I feel half bad, half ROFL for the GW person commenting on Consumerist:
EldaFever
9:58 AM When will these lists start taking into consideration that GWU has fixed tuition?! Yes, we are #1 or #2 (depending on the year) most expensive school for incoming freshmen, but they pay THE SAME AMOUNT FOR 4 YEARS! I'm in my 5th year now after taking a leave of absence, and I'm still paying under $50K because I was in the first class when fixed tuition got introduced.
1 reply by funkright
funkright
12:30 PM @EldaFever:
So.. let me get this.. you are now near a 1/4 of a million dollars in cost for a 4 year degree?
By the way, "leave of absence" almost always means "went home to Jersey to rehab to get off the nose candy" at GW.
[ report this ]
At the time, my Alma Mater was $17K per year, including everything, out-of-state. So naturally a $50K+ school is just absolutely nauseating for me to think about. I'm so glad I went to college when I did. This shit is out of control these days, especially since education is a profitable business in this country and no longer an affordable, respectable institution. What a shame.
[ report this ]
yonas, mine was $12,000 a year tuition, so overall, it was probably the same as yours. i graduated in '03 with no loans and two BA's. i agree, $50,000 a year for undergrad is just insane.
on a similar note, i'm looking at grad schools right now. in comparing similar programs at University of Missouri, Ohio University, and Boston University, i'm shocked. Missouri and Ohio's entire programs, including room and board, equal one year of tuition-only at Boston. and those two offer full tuition waivers with assistantships, and Boston does not.
money's making this decision harder than i'd like.
[ report this ]
I still have my first in-state tuition stub for my freshman year at Maryland. Minus Pell Grant and student loans, it was $872.
[ report this ]
I had been out of school for 6 years before I was making $50k, but then I went to state school.
[ report this ]
I went to a large state school in the midwest. My first year in school, 1995-96, tuition cost me $4000 for the YEAR, and books were only nominally more expensive.
This $50k per year sh!t is insane.
[ report this ]
Even more nauseating than paying $50K/year for tuition, is what the parents who fork over that kind of money expect for it. WifeRat is a tenured professor at GWU and the stories she tells about obnoxious parents calling her to lobby for grade changes for their dipshit kids are astounding.
[ report this ]
Something GW does a terrible job advertising is that they also give the most financial aid in the country. Very few people pay full tuition, and most get loads of dough. That's why I could afford to go there.
[ report this ]
When I attended, the going rate was $36,000, but that host was mitigated by the $12,000 or so in merit scholarship money that I got. Thinking back, however, I doubt I'd attend GW again. It simply doesn't have enough bang for the buck, and many of the people are atrocious.
[ report this ]
read "that host" as "that cost". I'm hummus drunk...
[ report this ]
As much as I love to see Bates College, my alma mater, at the #1 spot on a list, I must mention that the $43,950 tuition rate is actually the comprehensive fee (ie, combining tuition, room and board, and an unlimited meal plan). Bates doesn't have a separate tuition fee. I believe the same is true for some of the other schools in the "tuition only" list.
[ report this ]
I stole other people's credit cards to pay for my education.
Worked out well. And taught me a valuable life lesson.
[ report this ]
Golly, I remember when I went to Ginormous State University (& Cow College) out in the Flyover Midwest it was something like $100 per credit hour, in state.