The University of San Diego has raised its annual tuition above the $50,000 level for the first time, placing the campus among a relatively small number of private liberal arts schools nationwide who charge at least that much money.
USD will charge $50,450 in tuition and fees during the 2019-20 academic year, a $1,700 increase over the current year. If you add room, board and related expenses, a full year at USD will cost $67,211. That’s an increase of $2,282 over this year.
The price increase places USD among the roughly 100 private colleges and universities nationally that charge a minimum of $50,000 in tuition. The schools include such large research universities as the University of Southern California, and small campuses, including Pomona and Pitzer colleges.
USD’s new $50,450 tuition figure represents the so-called “sticker price.” The actual cost, for most students, is significantly less after financial aid and scholarships are factored in.
Even so, USD has been concerned about tuition, which has recently risen about 3 percent at private schools. The university said last fall that it would attempt to reduce operating expenses by at least $15 million over the next five years so that it could avoid making big tuition hikes.
“Tuition is only part of the story,” said Lissette Martinez, a USD spokeswoman “Due to strong growth in our endowment and judicious cost control measures, USD students graduate with less debt than the national average.
“The total cost of attendance at USD for the most recent academic year is the lowest among our Catholic peer institutions. The average undergraduate student receives nearly $38,000 in financial assistance per year.”
Full story at San Diego U-T.
I’m not a Burnie Sanders fan, but free tuition for all seems more and more likely after headlines like this!
So, you want US taxpayers to foot the bill for young people to attend these schools which have done nothing to bring modern technology to their campuses. Within 20 years, college and university campuses will become obsolete as teaching centers, mainly because their inability to control costs will drive them out of business. They will be replaced by internet campuses which will exist inside of every person’s home.
The University of SD will suffer that same fate as parents finally realize that going into debt to the tune of $200,000 for a 4 year college education is economic madness.
Xavier, I dunno, maybe you’re right. I have friends in the online learning “space”, providing courses from some of the best universities around the world. I’ve certainly learned a lot from watching youtube videos – how to cook, craft, and photograph. But I still think there is something to be said for in person mentorship and peer learning that comes with a good education. Certain things like lab classes and art classes are pretty hard to deliver via internet, so far anyway. Can you imagine people with test tubes and bunsen burners in their Mom’s kitchen?
Yes, let USD give free tuition to students from its endowments. Put the burden on the institutions for fiscal responsibility, not us taxpayers through the government
The super rich can write a check. The low income can often get full financial support. Those in the middle wind up with significant loan debt for the student, the parents, and sometimes grandparents.
For provincial residents, most Canadian provinces have government supported University education at religious sponsored institutions at rates comprable to US state institutions. Sorry, they charge most Americans the equivalent of ‘out of state’ rates.
This is a great worry! Financial Aid offerred to today’s college students is very deceptive! Parents also can become financially damaged to the extreme, with today’s Student Loan programs! Many students, and well-meaning parents, are getting trapped financially into highly deceptive Financial Aid packages that they may never be able to fully repay, after graduation! Very dangerous!
How are Student loan programs and Financial Aid packages deceptive? Please be more specific. Student loans are a burden, for sure, but deceptive? Really?
Anonymous– all debts of any kind– can be very deceptive! Some students who take out Student Loans, receive a good education– but then cannot find a job after graduation– or they cannot find a job in which they can take care of all their needs– including expensive monthly loan re-payments! About 40 years ago, I had a nice neighbor, a first grade teacher. She paid $300/month on her Student Loan for 10 long years, after graduation! She got married after college, found a teaching job– and raised several children– but that $300/month loan re-payment was hard, on a young, growing family! Today, the situation is much more difficult!
Approval for a student loan is an implied representation that the lender believes the borrower will be able to pay it back. There is no basis for this when loans are made to immature 18 year olds who haven’t a clue what they’ll be doing after graduation or any idea of whether they’ll be able to get a job at all. The schools are complicit as they raise tuition rates to funnel the easy cash their own way. The whole system is a deception when vulnerable kids end up graduating with degrees they later discover are unmarketable. Even the ones who do avoid default never foresee the suffocating financial burden they eventually become saddled with when they don’t land an 80 hour a week job on Wall Street.
Today’s Financial Aid programs often involve parents, as well as students, due to extremely high costs. At these expensive schools, I have heard of some parents ending up nearly $100,000 in debt, after their son or daughter graduates! And their kids also have HUGE Student Loan debts! Plus, many have scholarships– and may also work part-time. Scary!
I just read that the 2017-2018 total cost for a full-time student at Notre Dame, was $69,395– regardless of residency! (Of course– Notre Dame is guilty of some terrible moral evils, in recent years!) I also read, in another place– that costs for a college education increased about 250%, since the late 1990s! Wonder what can be done about this??
Is that just rhetorical? Easy – stop the flow of easy money through predatory student loans.
No, “Commentator”– we really do need truly good, orthodox, affordable Catholic institutions, to send our children—- and grandchildren!– to! Something is really wrong with our economic situation today, as well as the cost of an education! And why has the cost of a college education jumped 250%, since the late 1990s?
When one of my daughter’s was younger we looked into a private religiously affiliated college in Canada. When the currency exchange rate was taken into account, this was around 2001, the Canadian college looked very affordable compared to similar colleges in the U.S. She decided to stay in the U.S. however and went to a state college.
I would not trust USD to form students in Catholic faith and life, although they may offer them other disciplines and a pretty campus. USD is trading off the reputation of its founders.
Fr. Richard, you are right about USD. It is a bastion of radical identity politics and couldn’t be further from core Catholic values if it tried. Bishop McElroy, at a USD forum, criticized his own Catholic laity for bringing about the “scourge of anti-Islamic prejudice”. He said nothing about the persecution of Christians by Islam. He urged lay Catholics to be “disruptors”; I just think he might get more than he bargained for because we, the faithful, are listening and watching and are ready to disrupt.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
an institution for wealthy infidels
USD is ensnared in the national college bribery admissions scandal. I’m surprised that no earlier comment here mentions that. USD is also being sued by former applicants who were denied admission. This school will definitely incur some unforeseen expenses in the near term as a result.