Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Ah, the Good Ol’ Days When a College Education Cost $235 a Year

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Responding to my frequent diatribes against the rising cost of college attendance, reader Carter Peaseley sent me this clipping from an old Richmond College advertisement in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, dating back to 1906. The tuition was $100 for a full year of study, and living expenses were $15 a month. Total cost of a year’s attendance (nine months of living expenses): $235.

Compare that to the cost of attendance at the University of Richmond today: $52,610 this year.

Admittedly, a dollar isn’t worth what it used to be. Indeed, if we use the Consumer Price Index calculator, we see that $235 in 1913 (which is as far back as the calculator goes) is the equivalent of about $6,300 today. So, to be fair, the inflation-adjusted cost of a college education at UR has increased only eight-fold over the past century, not 200-fold.

I suppose one can argue that students get more for their money these days. UR has handsome buildings and a beautiful campus. That $52,610 tuition, fees, room and board also helps pay for a lot of financial aid. Only affluent families pay the full price. UR, which has gone co-ed since its early days as a women’s college, has basketball and football programs, and I daresay that its living accommodations and food plans are superior. However, the main reason to attend college is to learn. Are students today learning eight times as much?

It would be an interesting exercise for some archivist to delve into UR’s old records to examine the size of the college bureaucracy in 1906. I’ll bet that the cost structure was a lot leaner and meaner back then.

— JAB

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12 responses to “Ah, the Good Ol’ Days When a College Education Cost $235 a Year”

  1. Kathleen Smith Avatar
    Kathleen Smith

    And we keep telling kids vocational ed is not a college education and without a college education, you are a nobody. Oh, and while your at it take out $75,000 or more in student loans and pay interest to feds and banks for the rest of your life. Sounds like a nice tax scheme.

    My son who is now 43, paid Richmond Tech $200 per semester for HVAC and had a paid apprenticeship on the side. Graduated in 2 years. So $800. Makes more than my daughter who is a USDA soil scientist. Makes you wonder. At least she went in a full scholarship. Had to work like H for it.

    1. tmtfairfax Avatar
      tmtfairfax

      I think Maryland does a much better job at vocational education than Virginia. I see a high number of Maryland license plates on contractor vehicles in Fairfax C0unty. And lots of Maryland plates at the McLean station parking lot that is used by many Tysons construction workers. Of course, crappy old FCPS forced its vocational ed students to study online exclusively. So much for caring about students. Public institutions are probably highest on the list for corruption and self-interest.

  2. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Uh yep, there was a time when a State College meant State supported to the amount that tuition was kept low.

    https://www.wm.edu/offices/financialoperations/sa/tuition/historical-tuition-data/history/index.php

    1. tmtfairfax Avatar
      tmtfairfax

      In the real world, businesses look for ways to improve productivity and make profits by doing more for less. State-sponsored colleges and universities need to do the same. What is the administrative employee to student ration now versus 20 or 30 years ago? What is the teaching load for tenure and tenure-track instructors now versus 20 or 30 years ago? How can technology reduce costs and deliver more value to students and tuition payers?

      Top administrators should be compensated based on their ability to deliver more and better value for fewer inputs.

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        The course requirements hasn’t changed in 50 years to the best of my knowledge. If I recall it was 5 3-hr courses minimum. If one were also the department chair, it was 4. Most carry more, not less. There was a reduction based on grants. I sure there are some universities with a reseach faculty that don’t teach at all.

        1. tmtfairfax Avatar
          tmtfairfax

          Thanks for the information.

        2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
          Dick Hall-Sizemore

          Oh, they have changed. I just checked VCU’s schedule of political science classes for the spring semester. The only faculty members that have five or more sections are the chairman (all independent study or field experience, neither requiring any class prep or lectures), one assistant professor, and one instructor (one regular section and 6 sections of field experience). One assistant professor has four sections (3 different courses) and another has three sections (two different courses). All the others have one or two sections each. Five listed faculty members have no sections this semester. Six people listed as instructors for classes this semester are not included in the list of departmental faculty members. Presumably, they are adjunct instructors.

          1. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Any courses listed marked “staff”? Where I taught, most of the 100 and 200 levels were just marked “staff” which was a mix of full time and adjuncts. Things change, and for me it has been 16 years since I performed my stand up routines. And, from 1981 to 2005, all the adjuncts I knew were either NASA or Jefferson Labs boys and girls, maybe a retired military officer or two. Clearly VCU is taking advantage.

            In the past, it was “essential foreign” workers that got screwed this badly by industry. Now the universities are doing it to citizens.

          2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
            Dick Hall-Sizemore

            No, the instructors for all the 100-level courses are assistant professors.

  3. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead

    In 1943 the in state tuition at VPI was 120 dollars. In 1953 tuition had come up to 456 dollars. By 1965 down to 356 dollars. In 1971 back up 540 dollars. 1982 tuition jumped to 1,680 dollars. 1994 rose to $3,500 dollars. It was in the early 1990s when the campus saw major construction and improvements to campus life. 2002 another rise to 5,000 dollars. 2013 we are up to 14,000 dollars.

    Th 1921 VPI women’s basketball team played for the first time. Nicknamed the Turkey Hens.

  4. Eric the half a troll Avatar
    Eric the half a troll

    That nasty supply and demand things strikes again…

  5. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Posted on behalf of Steve Emmert:

    I’ve only now seen your March 6 post about the cost of attending the University of Richmond, comparing it with the quaint cost in 1906. Because you’re swimmin’ in my pool – Richmond College, Class of 1979 here – I thought I’d chime in.

    The 1906 advertisement was fascinating. I wish I could make out some of the typescript to see what the ad said in detail. I do note that since it’s from 1906, it predates the school’s move to the West End in 1914. The original school, dating to its 1840 founding, was located at the corner of Lombardy and Grace Streets; I think it’s still standing. This is the building where those students who enrolled in 1906 would have gone to school.

    One of the headers that I can read describes “Admission of Women.” Back then, Westhampton College didn’t exist; Richmond College admitted a few women, but the administration soon decided to create a separate college for them. I think that creation coincided with the move west. In your article, you state that the university “has gone co-ed since its early days as a women’s college.” No, no, no! It started as a men’s school, a Baptist seminary. It eventually admitted a few women and then created that separate college for them. Richmond College never experienced “early days as a women’s college.”

    I arrived in August 1976 at the stunningly beautiful campus in the West End. My total cost for tuition, room, and board that year was $7,950. I received a $400 credit thanks to Aunt Virginia; she offered that small stipend to Virginia residents who chose to attend private colleges in the state. My family emphatically wasn’t affluent, but we basically paid the rack rate.

    You have seriously understated the current cost of attendance by reporting it as $52,610. According to the university’s website, the charges billed by the university, including tuition, room, and board, run to $72,520 per year. Don’t take my word for it:
    https://financialaid.richmond.edu/applying/cost.html

    Finally, I returned to campus a year ago on a prepandemic Saturday in February 2020, accompanied by one of my long-ago classmates. We came to watch the most important basketball game of the season (Spiders 77, VCU 59; heh, heh). Because we got to campus with several hours to kill, we wandered around. Among other surprises:

    The dorms are now coed. When I attended, the men were on one side of the lake and the women were on the other. (They did teach swimming lessons.) My pal and I managed to make our way into our freshman dorm, where I knocked on the door of my old room. A coed answered. After I assured her that I wasn’t a monster and told her why I was there, she spoke pleasantly with us for a few minutes. She was astonished to learn that the room wasn’t air conditioned then. It looked very small to me.

    The food in the new dining hall, where we had lunch, was unimaginably good. I think the dining service back in the 70s came from the lowest responsive, responsible bidder; it was sufficient to fend off starvation but the quality was nothing to brag about. The current dining experience is magnificent.

    The southern entrance to campus, which enters River Road near the foot of the Huguenot Bridge, was an unpaved dirt road when I attended. Now it looks sculpted.

    I have zero doubt that the student experience at UR is superior to the vast majority of other colleges, public or private. But as the guy with the checkbook, I was profoundly grateful that my favorite daughter chose to attend a public college, JMU. If she had chosen to follow me to the West End, I’d be in bankruptcy court.

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