<p>sjmom, yes the $6000 is expensive, but the money is not only used to throw gala like parties!!! ;)</p>
<p>I was at my son’s fraternity’s parent’s weekend last weekend, and I talked at length to the house manager (who lives there and is a paid employee, but also like a surrogate dad to the members) and he described the expenses just to keep up the house. I wish I could post a picture, but it is HUGE, and on a HUGE plot of land. It was originally built decades ago (I think in the 30’s), so has a ton of maintenance type costs. They just recently had a 3 million dollar renovation and have established a trust to mainitain the property. He also told me that their property taxes have increased over 300% since the city of Austin rezoned the property west of campus. Many of the greek organizations are involved in legal action to try to redesignate the greek house properties because they are currently zoned as if a multi story condominium project are going to be built on them, and that cannot happen, the property is owned by national, tax exempt, organizations! </p>
<p>The area that the fraternity and sorority houses are in has gotten astronomically expensive, as has anywhere close to the campus. For example, my freshman son lives in a private dorm that is costing us $10,000 this school year (this does include a meager meal plan). He will be living in a 6 bedroom duplex with a bunch of guys next year and we are paying $800 for his room a month, not including food or utilities, so that dump is worth $4,800.00 per month to the owner. Dang, I wish I’d bought one of those hovels back in the 80’s when they were CHEAP! </p>
<p>But, the tuition at UT costs around $8,500 a year, so even with adding the expense of housing, food, and fraternity, I’m still getting off pretty light with paying around $25,000. </p>
<p>The other school he was interested in attending (Notre Dame) would have run me around $45,000. 
Whew, I got out of that one!</p>