Tuition Woes

If you’ve ever thought about buying a second home, just send your teen to college. That’s what it’s like, costwise, according to the Weekly Standard (May 12). “Getting a college degree used to be like buying an expensive car. Now it’s like buying a house”—and with an “adjustable-rate mortgage” that keeps going up, we might add. “If the past is any guide, those costs will rise next year and the next and the next,” says the Standard.

At present, here’s how the cost breaks down: $50,000 for a four-year degree at a public school and $120,000 if you attend a private school. According to the Standard, “The College Board admonishes sticker-shocked parents (and students) to ‘consider college an investment’ and informs that the gap in earning potential between a high school diploma and a bachelor of arts degree is more than $1 million. Fair enough. Yet that doesn’t answer the question of why it is that college must cost so much.”

At Imperial College, the educational institution sponsored by the same Church that produces this magazine, we do things differently. After a $4,000 entrance fee, our students pay for all room, board, supplies and tuition through a student work program—and they graduate