In college you learn to pinch pennies in a way that makes Ramen Noodles and water seem like a posh soup de jour. So with the latest tuition increase of $800 per semester, I understand the concerns being raised by students.
Over the summer, I remained here on campus to prepare for my term as GM, but doing so required me to turn down my internship and drain what remained of my childhood savings. I learned to live off of $3.00 a day—no kidding. I’ll forever be thankful for Price Chopper’s $1.00 Banquet brand frozen dinners that saved me from disgusting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at least one meal a day.
Coughing up an additional $1,600 a year is not an easy task. Even after my summer trials, I can’t begin to say I completely understand the position some of you are in. But having had the chance to represent you this year, I’ve been exposed to some very difficult situations that members of our own student body face. To those of you with the weight of the world on your shoulders, I have a message for you: don’t try to handle this on your own. Seek help from the administration who last year established a financial aid pool for students facing economic hardship. Or come to me and I’ll personally help you pursue assistance.
For the rest of you now looking at new loans, I’d like to help you understand the increase. Rest assured you were well-represented to the administration. The Student Senate and I lobbied for you right up to the last minute, and I can assure you they understand your difficulties—many administrators have children facing similar college expenses.
They understand that Rensselaer students have greater need than any of our peer institutions. At the spring town meeting, Dr. Jackson cited the U.S. News and World Report statistics showing that 72 percent of our students have need compared to 52 percent at Princeton, 46 percent at Union, 47 percent at Cornell, 56 percent at Rochester, 32 percent at Rice, 64 percent at MIT, and 46 percent at U-Penn. She showed statistics indicating that the percentage of Pell Grant recipients at Rensselaer is the highest among them. She showed that in 2005, 75 percent of our students graduated with debt (an average of $27,235 to be exact).
With such a significant need within our student body and a considerably smaller endowment than many of our peer institutions, nearly 90 percent of financial aid comes directly out of Rensselaer’s operating budget. Because of this, every tuition dollar counts; we cannot simply draw from our endowment as other schools do. Our endowment, as of June 2005, was at roughly $624 million. It sounds big until you consider our peer institutions: Princeton: $11.2 billion, MIT: $6.7 billion, U-Penn: $4.4 billion, Cornell: $3.8 billion, Rice: $3.6 billion, and Rochester: $1.4 billion.
This underscores the importance of the $1 billion capital campaign underway called The Renaissance at Rensselaer:The Campaign for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. As of last week, over $666 million had been raised. Now a new mini-campaign for scholarships and fellowships is underway to aid our students.
One must also take into account that the cost of a technical education is much more expensive than a non-technical one. We require laboratories and equipment that liberal arts universities do not. That is not to say we are the only school in the country with this burden, but we are doing very well balancing our resources with such a tremendous undertaking. The good news is that every year we have been expanding those resources to reach an annual research awards and expenditure mark of $100 million as called for under The Rensselaer Plan.
Our talented students and faculty have nothing to fear from the future. We are all making investments today that are gradually changing the heart of Rensselaer to one of indomitable influence. Just months from now, when my graduating classmates and I join the workforce of America, we will be able to speak confidently about the storied past and bold future of our alma mater to anyone who is questioning. But a few years from now when we reach the top of our career fields, we won’t need to bother. A brief mention of the name will suffice. To all those who doubted our hard work and investments it will be painstakingly clear: RPI’s reputation as the oldest technological university will be vanquished by a new mantra as the most prominent and gifted contributor to American innovation in the 21st century.
