<p>Ouch! Just before income-tax time, received notice from frosh D's LAC re: increases for next year. Tuition/fees up 6.5% and room/board up a whopping 24%. A total increase in comprehensive fee of 9.4%. I hope she gets that RA position! EFC went up too. :( Waiting on my S's notice...</p>
<p>Which school? How do they justify a 24% increase?</p>
<p>Ouch is right! Slap, punch, kick, even. It really is pretty chilling how they have gotcha once they have gotcha.</p>
<p>We got our letter about a month ago...4.9% increase total. The school is already in the top 10 most expensive schools...but still, we felt that 4.9% wasn't too bad.</p>
<p>dstark:</p>
<p>Well, I guess as MOthree says, once they've gotcha, they've gotcha. The school is Carleton in MN. I've got some comps, and it appears Carleton is rather quickly bringing their charges in line with others that are already there:</p>
<p>Current 04-05 annual room/board - full meal plan, double room:</p>
<p>Carleton 6309 (going up to 7818)
Macalester 7350
Northwestern 9330
WashUStL 10292 (going up to 10754)
UWashington 8214
UCSB 9897 (niece is frosh there)
Pomona 10385
Williams 8110
Swarthmore 9314
St. Olaf 5800 - in the same town as Carleton. Maybe I should have my D live there (over her dead body).</p>
<p>Still doesn't make me feel any better. :mad:</p>
<p>Maize&Blue, normally I get really pi**ed off when I read posts like this, but Carleton was pretty cheap. It would be a fair question to ask
Carleton why St. Olaf is so much cheaper.
How does your niece like UCSB?</p>
<p>dstark:</p>
<p>St. Olaf vs. Carleton R&B fees: Maybe Carleton is rounding up all of the neighborhood cows for top-sirloin dinners. Welcoming sign into Northfield says Town of Cows, Colleges, Contentment. But I haven't seen any cows on any of my visits, so they must all be on the dinner table. As for St. Olaf, they must be feeding their students seconds from the Malto Meal facility in town.</p>
<p>Niece likes UCSB - her type of school. Not an overwhelming amount of serious studying for a bright kid, combined with a good-sized dose of partying. She generally leaves campus most weekends to return to BF in LA area. My brother's dumb idea to let her have a car.</p>
<p>Forgot to mention Whitman comp at 7180 and UMich at 7030 (I remember your D is there). When my S lived in Markley 99-00, I think R&B was about 5500 (about 5.5% annual increase since then). Does your D live on the "hill"?</p>
<p>My D lives in Markley and is really happy there. Next year, she goes to live in a soroity house. I forget which one. She was anti-sorority before she went to Michigan, changed her mind. She chose Michigan over UCSB because she said she would party too much at UCSB. I find that funny because she has no trouble finding parties at Michigan. :)</p>
<p>I agree. Once they gotcha, they gotcha. I am not looking forward to Michigan's fee increases.</p>
<p>Advice: look carefully at the meal plan.</p>
<p>My son was able to get apartment-style housing his second year of college, and completely dropped the meal plan. He could still buy meals on campus on occassion, and of course he had to shop for groceries, but he still saved a bundle over what the college was charging. </p>
<p>Every college will be different, but you will want to talk to your daughter about how many meals she actually took during her first year, and evaluate the cost of the various stepped down meal plans carefully. One reason my son dropped his plan was that, at his college, we figured out that it was cheaper to buy the meals in the dining hall than to pay for the same number of meals for the lesser plans; i.e. a 10-meal a week plan was more expensive than going in and buying 10 meals.</p>
<p>Thanks Calmom - I'll have her continue to evaluate her consumption as well as price/meal factor. After the first trimester (when all frosh have to be on 20/wk plan), she dropped down to 13/wk with minimal savings. Has fridge in room and full kitchen in floor lounge. Groceries ate up most of what she saved. But I suppose she probably would have been buying most of the junk food and snacks anyway. When older S moved into apartments after freshman year, his expenses (utilities, cable, modem, etc. included) ended up to be more than the dorm even tho' there were 4 guys to about 500 square feet of space.</p>
<p>Part of the issue of savings probably depends on what the kid eats. My son was a vegetarian and a big rice-eater -- if he could have only one kitchen appiance, it would be his rice cooker. Rice is cheap. Tofu isn't all that expensive either. So in essence, when he was part of a meal plan, he was paying more $$ for food so that other kids could eat meat. But if he had more expensive food preferences for himself, then maybe it wouldn't have been such a saving.</p>
<p>calmom: S is veg. too and he also can't have dairy products because of his food allergy. What did you S do for Milk?....We were planning to ship him crates of Soy Milk, but perhaps there is a better way.</p>
<p>Swarthmore increased tuition, room and board, and student activities fee by 4.75%. It will be $41,280 for 2005-2006 school year.</p>
<p>Simba, there is Lactaid milk (for people with allergies) that I have every day. Low fat too. I could get you the brand name if you want. It is available in every supermarket here in NJ.</p>
<p>Isn't the increase higher than inflation?</p>
<p>Friday, Feb. 25, 2005 | DURHAM, N.C. -- The Duke University Board of Trustees on Friday approved a 5.1 percent increase in tuition, fees, and room and board for undergraduate students in the coming academic year.</p>
<p>Just found this:</p>
<p>Mar 10, 2005</p>
<p>Figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the annual rate of inflation fell slightly last month to 2.2%, compared with 2.3% in January. This was the third fall in a row in the annual rate.</p>
<p>achat: Thanks, but those milks are for people with lactose intolerance. If one is hyper allergic to milk cassine, those milks don't work.</p>
<p>Simba, if your son is going to Stanford or Duke, I am 100% sure there will be Soy milk there in their many cafeterias. You don't need to send him crates!! :)</p>
<p>thanks for the wish.</p>
<p>Simba, my son was vegetarian, not vegan - so basically he did eat dairy products. He did his own grocery shopping off campus. He didn't have a car, but there were other students who did have cars, so it wasn't much of a problem. I did sometimes ship him food - usually I'd order stuff online and have it mailed to him.</p>