CLARIFICATION: The full tuition to attend Syracuse University was unclear. The full tuition referred to the total cost of attending, not just tuition. The 5-percent increase in tuition rates from the 2010-11 academic year to the 2011-12 academic year referred to the nationwide percentage, not SU specifically. 

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, the admission rate in 2011-12 was misstated. The admission rate was 51 percent at the time. The tuition increase of 3.6 percent was only recommended by the Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee. The median SAT score for incoming freshmen was also misstated. The median score is 1160. The financial aid awarded last year was also misstated. A total of $206 million was awarded in financial aid last year. The Daily Orange regrets these errors. 

At the chancellor search forum during the Student Association meeting on March 18, Syracuse University students said Nancy Cantor’s replacement should ask for more student feedback, assimilate intractable groups and be transparent with tuition money.

These are legitimate concerns. But they obfuscated the elephant in the room: SU, like elite schools across the country, is mired in a vicious cycle of tuition inflation and academic stagflation. Tuition rates are increasing and admissions standards are in a symbiotic recession.

The new chancellor needs to curb this cycle at Syracuse, and chancellors across the United States need to do the same because of the post-graduate debt crisis that loan inflation has created.

Inflation is contagious. One hundred seventy-three schools in the United States cost at least $50,000 per year. Tuition rates climbed 5 percent from the 2010-11 academic year to the 2011-12 academic year, the lowest increase in three years.

At SU, inflation is reaching a boiling point. Full tuition to attend the university was $43,856 in 2007-08, according to Collegedata.com. In just five years, according to SU’s website, it’s ballooned to $55,600.

At the University Senate meeting in February, Budget Committee spokesman Craig Dudczak revealed SU gave out $206 million in financial aid for the 2011-12 academic year, up 6.3 percent from 2010-11. The university also overshot its budget limits on financial aid for first-year students, transfer students and continuing students.

The parasitic tandem has created a divergent scenario: SU students either pay the full tuition or get extensive discounts.

Twenty-five percent of students pay full tuition, according to SU’s website. More than 60 percent receive an aid package that covers at least 20 percent of the total fee, according to Dudczak’s report.

The average stipulation is $23,580, almost half of the total, according to U.S. News and World Report.

As rates swell, SU officials are forced to hand out more loans to keep the school affordable, making general admissions standards as concerning as SU’s debt situation. Standards have declined precipitously in recent years. The average SAT score at SU for an incoming freshman was 1220 in 2007. By 2012, it had dropped to 1160, according to a study by the University of Miami.

SU’s acceptance rate hovered in the 49-51-percent range throughout the 2000s. In 2011-12, it was 50 percent, according to Dudczak.

It’s difficult for one institution to buck an overarching trend, but the new chancellor can limit collateral damage for academic standards and post-graduate debt.

Cantor’s replacement should start by continuing two burgeoning initiatives: curbing tuition and using more donor money for scholarships. The Senate Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee recommended that tuition should increase by 3.6 percent. The Campaign for Syracuse University has created 350 new scholarships since its launch in 2007.

Scholarships are particularly beneficial because they reward scholastic success and combat the inconvenient truth about financial aid: In the long run, it hurts recipients as much as the institution.

Since 1999, post-graduate loan debt has quietly become the most ubiquitous economic crisis in the United States.

Loan debt has risen more than 500 percent since the turn of the millennium, according to New York Public Interest Research Group. At more than $1 trillion, it tops credit card debt as the No. 1 source of liability in the United States.

Thirty-seven million Americans — about 12 percent of the population — are in debt. Even senior citizens still owe roughly $36 billion, collectively.

Unless a new bill is introduced, the problem will get exponentially worse on July 1, when interest rates double to 6.8 percent. Congress extended the 3.4-percent rate last July and is unlikely to do so again.

At SU and across the country, the stagnation in academic standards is not yet comparable to the inflation of tuition and aid. But the debt crisis is undeniable.

If SU and its fellow institutions continue to overspend on loans, they risk becoming glorified safety schools, which are not exactly worth an adulthood of burdensome debt.

Jarrad Saffren is a junior television, radio and film and political science major. His column appears weekly. He can be contacted via email at jdsaffre@syr.edu and on Twitter at @JarradSaff. 

Published on March 27, 2013 at 1:25 am