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I have been on this forum long enough to know how to have a discussion and make my opinions known without revealing the school(s) I am associated with, which is not against the rules of College Confidential in any way. Please stay on the topic if you want to make any comments in this thread. Otherwise you are just being rude and spamming.</p>
<p>123mama and baystateresident, thank you for your input. I think in this context, what’s important for people to look into is not “hidden costs” that are not included in tuition and mandatory fees but the possible “hiddent benefits” of higher tuition fees. Do schools with lower tuition fees offer significantly less “perks”? Do those perks matter to your family and the student? Do you prefer some of the cost to be discretionary or mandatory? I personally would like to pay a lower tuition fee only if most on-campus actitivities, the occasional off campus trips, and on- and off- campus atheletic events are covered. I can accept the fact that some of the activities are not “free”, but they shouldn’t be prohibitive to some enough to make a “class division” among students. </p>
<p>In general, schools with larger endowments can afford to charge lower tuition fees but that doesn’t seem always true. I think it also has something to do with the scale of economy, what the schools feel important should be part of the BS experience and should be factored in the tuition fees, etc. </p>
<p>I hope this thread, if nothing else, can remind the families to look into the tution fees they are about to pay and find out what the “real deal” is - for those who are “cost aware” and are picking a schools among more than one options anyway.</p>