I’ve been hearing about the tuition costs at UTEP and decided to take a look back to see what they were in the past.
The Tuition column shows the cost for 12 semester hours for a single semester without any of the other fees. The cost is for those who qualified for resident tuition rates.
The 2015 Dollars column shows the inflation adjusted value of the Tuition column bringing it forward to 2015.
Year Tuition 2015 Dollars
1960 $ 50 $ 402
1970 $ 50 $ 307
1980 $ 152 $ 439
1990 $ 393 $ 716
2000 $ 720 $ 996
2010 $ 1,922 $ 2,100
2015 $ 2,926
UTEP is not unusual in this regard but the old days of working your way through college seem to be gone.
I invite the readers to contribute their thoughts.
Brutus
elpasospeak 
$2,926 at $7.00 per hour wage means you need to work 418 hours to raise tuition money. Add $1,500 for books and fees and you need to ẃork 632 hours.
Difficult? possibly, impossible? probably not
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After FICA and income tax withholding are factored in that $7 is actually $5.53 after tax which is about 530 hours. If only FICA is withheld then $6.58 which is about 445 hours. With $1500 in books it’s about 802 or 673 hours respectively
A 12 hour credit load would require an additional 36 to 48 hours of study per week not including time spent in class.
If a student enrolled in fall and spring only that would be $8852. They would have to work 31 to 26 hours a week year round just to cover tuition and books. No fees, transportation cost, or food etc is considered so it’s probably not possible without a loan or grant.
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Obviously no one on the tenure list has any concern for affordability of a college education. Does anyone have a fact or two that shows why such an increase? I agree this is not unique to UTEP.
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Once federally back student loans became widely available and students could borrow large amounts, colleges stopped worrying about cost control. I got my Master’s degree in 1983 in Alabama. My employer’s tuition refund program paid for it. Back then my manufacturing employer had a program that would pay for a degree at any state school as long as the employee worked full time and made a C or better on undergrad courses or a B or better on graduate courses. They worked with the two local universities to help establish evening class sessions to make it easy for people to work and attend class. Technology should be lowering college costs and improving accessibility but our universities are so busy pursuing Tier One status that they aren’t focused on what should be their primary mission, cost effectively educating students.
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Is this surprising?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/study-one-americas-most-prestigious-143138497.html
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It’s easy for businesses, including universities, to blame their rising costs on the federal government. They know that excuse will resonate with a certain number of people who want to blame everything on the federal government. The federal government, however, is not the issue. It’s the profligate spending of the universities. Just look at the non-stop construction at UTEP over the past 10 years, including the building of non-essential things.
Universities also have no problem with taking government money, both directly through grants and indirectly through government-backed loans that fund rising tuition costs for students who would otherwise not attend college. Universities are just like so many other individuals and organizations. They want money from the government, but with no accountability.
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