Syracuse University’s tuition has been continually increasing year after year. In the 2020-21 academic year, SU’s tuition was $50,700 for students admitted before fall 2018 and $54,270 for students admitted after then. This year, it is $52,240 for students admitted before fall 2018 and $55,920 for those admitted after then. While this increase may seem insignificant, it has made it hard for many students to pay their tuition bill. SU must do more to decrease the overwhelming tuition SU requires by offering improved financial services and decreasing the amount of money allocated towards unnecessary projects on campus.

The remarkable rise in cost has frustrated SU students who feel like the university is prioritizing its image over reducing the cost of attendance. Even through a pandemic where 43% of Americans reported themself or a household member losing a job or taking a pay cut, SU decided to raise tuition, showing that it is not making decisions in the interest of current students or their families. 

With this being said, SU does provide financial aid to many students who require it. The university provides need-based grants and scholarships. Federal and state grants are also available to those who need it and are eligible. To be clear, not everyone who attends SU pays $55,920 in tuition per year, and the school does a sufficient job in providing aid for students who need it. 

Even though SU does a sufficient job in providing financial aid to those who need it, its many other services such as basic meal plans are far too expensive. Many students want more affordable meal plans and more availability of mental health services on campus. Meanwhile, the school has added unnecessary amenities like hand scanners to get into dining halls. SU needs to get its priorities straight. 

During the 2020-21 school year, about 80% of undergraduate SU students received some form of financial support. Zoe Cudney, a sophomore majoring in art history who received a scholarship to attend SU, spoke on her experience with the high tuition cost. “I am incredibly lucky as I was granted a scholarship to attend Syracuse University. It is one of the primary reasons I am even studying here, and as much as it feels like a blessing, it is also in many ways, a curse.” 

Cudney said that tuition is not the only financial burden for students. “The meal plan, housing cost, cost of travel due to SU buses not being reliable or efficient, and the cost of having a social life here, as well as simply the ability to pay off the loans I still had to take out to attend, requires I have a job in addition to my academic commitments,” Zoe said. With a cost of attendance of over $80,000, the university should make basic student needs like transportation and housing affordable and accessible.

Sydney Newcomb, a sophomore studying psychology and neuroscience at SU, speaks to this issue. “Syracuse’s tuition is insanely high, and the resources students receive do not seem to match the high tuition we are expected to pay. It almost seems that the university is oblivious to the students’ true and pressing needs and spends the money on services or items that do not help the students,” she said. 

These needs include improving health services at the Barnes Center at The Arch. “I have heard multiple students express their difficulties with getting an appointment for either physical or mental health in a timely manner. Our tuition seems high enough that the university could feasibly hire more counselors and nurses, but they choose not to,” Newcomb said.

This incredible amount of money seems almost ridiculous to have to pay every year, so where does all our money go? 

Tuition money goes towards “academic instruction and support, student affairs programs, student services, financial aid, operation of the physical plant and administration of the university,” Chancellor Kent Syverud said in an interview Q&A in 2001. Still, the university has invested tens of millions of dollars in Dome renovations, when it could be using that money to decrease tuition and raise financial aid.

We need to start calling SU out. Contact administration, protest, do whatever you can do to bring attention to SU’s ridiculous priorities of where it is putting its money. 

SU needs to lower tuition by any means possible. Tuition of $55,920 and increasing every year, should not be tolerated by the student body. This amount of money will lead to high amounts of student loans for thousands of SU students. The university has not done enough to level the rising cost of attendance and should be held accountable for this failure.

Melanie Wilder is a sophomore policy studies and information management double major. Her column appears biweekly. She can be reached at mewilder@syr.edu.

Published on October 17, 2021 at 11:45 pm