Cost of higher education constantly on the rise

By: Donna O'Neill

Posted: 11/12/08

Deciding to go to UMD can be an easy choice for some students, while others made their decisions based on multiple factors and chose to go to school here because it was in the right price range.

"I've always really liked Duluth. It was far enough away from my home but not too far," said junior Shawna Longrie. "UMD was affordable for me, and I got really amazing financial aid."

According to the UMD Registrar Web site, to attend one semester in the 2008-2009 school year, Minnesota residents pay $4,115 in tuition for 13 or more credits and $5,115 for non-residents.

Just 10 years ago, resident students attending UMD for the 1998-1999 school year paid as little as $1,110 for 13 credits and $3,275 for non-residents, according to the UMD Web site.

Figuring out how to pay for college tuition, housing and extra fees can be stressful for students. Most students hold part-time or even full-time jobs to help cover the costs.

"Money causes me a lot of stress. I work almost full time at my job, which leaves me very little time to actually do my homework," Longrie said. "It's very frustrating because I don't really have a choice. I need to work in order to pay for college and necessities, but I've noticed my school work is kind of suffering because of it."

Like Longrie, students may also find other ways to try and conserve their money and keep the costs of school at bay.

"I don't make much at my job so I generally only buy things that aren't name brand," Longrie said. "I buy whatever is cheaper; I'm a huge price shopper. I generally don't buy things I don't need either."

But has college always been this stressful for students? Has money always been one of the deciding factors?

For UMD linguistics professor Michael Linn, money was not an issue when he got his B.A. in chemistry in 1960 from the University of Montana Missoula.

"Money wasn't a problem," Linn said. "If you wanted to go to Harvard, you could afford to go to Harvard. You just had to get accepted."

In the summers, Linn had jobs as a lumberjack, construction worker or a forest firefighter.

"When I went to school, students didn't need money. They could make enough in the summer to pay for the entire year," Linn said. "I would get $200 a paycheck and my schooling would already be paid for after one week of work."

According to Linn, the state paid 86 percent of a student's school costs, and now the state only pays 16 percent of a student's school costs. As for expenses such as the cost of gas and groceries, Linn can't remember how much he spent for personal expenses.

"I would sometimes work part time, but usually because I wanted something," Linn said. "My folks owed me money by the time I graduated."

Chris Godsey, who is now a professor at the College of St. Scholastica, graduated from UMD in 1994. He said that money, along with others, was a factor in deciding where he wanted to go to school, but in different ways.

"My parents had saved a college fund for me my entire life, but had only enough to pay for a public school. I had interest in going to Gustavus, but it just couldn't work out," Godsey said.

Although he had a fund for college, Godsey wrote for the UMD Statesman to help pay for his personal expenses throughout the school year.

Along with working for the UMD Statesman during the school year, Godsey would work every summer.

Godsey feels that he was lucky to have his school paid for; however, he feels that there are some lessons he never learned.

"I think there was a disadvantage for me by having my school all paid for. I didn't learn some lessons that I should have learned about money and money for school when it came to paying for grad school later on," Godsey said.