Despite charging students nearly $29,000 per year in tuition, RPI still feels the need to send mailings to our parents and others to donate money to the capital campaign. This approach to fund-raising may generate some revenue for the school, but this action is upsetting on many levels.
Like most other private schools, students (and their parents) are already shelling out large sums of money to attend the Institute. In response to the high tuition, about 80 percent of students already receive some sort of financial aid. By sending these requests, the Institute is asking the same families who didn’t have enough money to cover tuition to make a voluntary donation. Many of these burdened families, upon receiving and reading these cards, may be left with the impression that RPI is just plain greedy, and may also feel disrespected, as they are already working hard to send tuition money to the school.
Of course, there are some students and families who are able to afford an RPI education without help. Despite being a minority, paying RPI in full for a student’s first year does not necessarily mean that the Institute will remain managable for a student’s entire time here; past trends show that the tuition tends to increase at a rate of approximately 4.5 percent each year. In addition, merely because a student or his family is able to afford a university education does not mean that they have extra money to donate to the school. Thus, only sending these cards to students who are not on financial aid will not cure the situation.
Of course, the tactic of mailing student’s families for donations is not a practice unique to RPI, and it does bring money into the school. Although other private institutions employ the same method of receiving donations, the disrespect it shows to students’ families doesn’t make the practice acceptable. The Institute should save money on printing and postage and discontinue sending these requests. After all, every enrolled student will be asked over and over again to donate once they graduate.
