By ROD WALTON Staff Writer on Aug 17, 2012, at 10:42 AM Updated on 8/17 at 10:42 AM
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Boomer Sooner or bust.
What seems like a rallying cry was and is, but with a slightly different meaning than some years ago. I grew up in Moore, a stone’s throw from the University of Oklahoma campus and bled Sooner crimson. I attended college there, working my way up to the riches of a life in journalism. The shape of the North and South Ovals are forever in my heart.
This is back to school week in our home. One of our eldest moved to Norman a day ago, joining what OU officials say is the largest freshman class ever – 4,100 souls seeking the intellectual nourishment of the collegiate life.
And what a rich life it is – rich as in worthwhile, rich as in shockingly expensive. And yes I know my surprise is partially due to the fact I myself haven’t been to school in 26 years. Times change and OU, like many other major colleges, takes a lot more change these days.
Let’s see, I lived at home and so my first OU bursar’s check was for about $350, including all tuition and fees for 15 hours. The bills stayed pretty constant over the course of four and half years, or so I remember in my fuzzy math.
My daughter’s account is generations removed from mine, a world apart in costs. The overall damage is more than $9,000, not factoring in a Pell Grant, scholarships and other aid. The Walton family, which includes grandparents, is on the hook for about $5,500.
Forget that lower number is still more than 1000 percent higher than my first semester’s costs. Inflation rises higher than a politician’s ego, and I know chocolate bars cost more than 15 cents and they don’t sell those candy cigarettes anymore. I get that, but my breath is truly taken away by the inflationary flight path of the average college education.
The OU resident tuition is about $2,000, only five times what I paid back in 1980-whatever. Tacked on top of that, however, are what I counted to be 20 different fees, including five things called “academic excellence fees” adding about $1,000 on top of tuition?
I’m told those fees are to fund research. Can I be a case study and get paid for that?
The cafeteria meal plan for slightly less than four months is about $1,900, or nearly $120 per week, or close to $24 per day if the chophouse is closed on weekends. Now that’s some good eating, people.
The residency charges are $2,300 for those 16 weeks, or $575 per month for a small room with a bunk bed, roommate and shared bathroom.
And so I looked around the OU campus, which is far busier and more glorious that I remembered even in my halcyon days. Something’s got to help pay for all that construction.
Do I sound bitter? I hope not. I want my children to have the best educations possible, because that is the way forward and always will be. What I hate is the idea that we can barely afford it and I worry about others who are in even more desperate straits.
It’s not the college’s fault completely. They have to compete and build and research, and that takes mucho dinero. And state Legislatures and federal movements aren’t doing us any favors, either.
My new best friend is the Pell Grant, which I helped gain by doing the FAFSA – or the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The Pell program, established in the 1960s, provided aid up to a certain limit for families who need it. Pell has been a godsend to us.
Some in the U.S. House of Representatives want to make cuts to the Pell Grant program. The long-time aid has bipartisan support in the Senate. Changes may happen so we’ll see.
So it’s back to school and back to work for this father of college students. I’m thrilled to help my girls work their way to a better future. I just wish it wasn’t so expensive and laden with a bewildering array of fees. I can’t imagine a teen-ager trying to navigate this by themselves without parental help.
And I haven’t mentioned the textbook business. Don’t get me started there.
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