My husband and I met at the University of Notre Dame, and a couple years ago, we detoured there on our way to visit my parents in the Detroit area. Lots had changed — the university, which quite readily attracts donors happy to have their names on buildings (though less willing to endow their upkeep costs), has been on a building spree lately, and has also bought up a lot of land just south of campus, which had been a fairly poor and declining area of small homes, to create a “college town”-type shopping/restaurant district that the university lacked, along with some additional housing.
But this weekend, for the first time since before the kids were born, we went back to Michigan State, where I was an undergrad.
To be sure, there weren’t the same changes as at Notre Dame. Most of the buildings were still the way they always were, though the stadium had grown, they’d gotten rid of the traffic circle, the football practice building had a shiny new atrium, and the like. But here are some of the changes, each of which points to a reason for the relentless tuition increases:
We stepped into my old dorm, and saw that the utilitarian cafeteria (a salad bar, three hot entrees and a couple side dishes, some desserts, soft-serve ice cream and cold cereal all day long, plus basic tables and chairs) was radically different, with a massively-widened variety of food choices, upscale tables and chairs, some in a coffeehouse-style, and an addition to accommodate it all — and that’s just what we could see from looking in through the glass walls.
Then we went up to my old dorm floor, 3 North Case. The first thing we saw was that all individual wings were now accessible only by keycard. (I don’t quite know the logistics of this — can you no longer visit friends without scheduling it and being met by them at the entrance to the wing? Or does a student ID provide access to any door at any dorm floor?) But the door to my old dorm wing was open — because the dorm was also the home to “James Madison College” and contained professors’ and administrators’ offices, as, in line with the general increase in staff, even though the student body hasn’t grown, this wing had been turned into professors’ offices.
And in the elevator lobby was a stack of yearbooks! There-for-the-taking yearbooks, and at the library was a shelf, marked “Yearbook – FREE” in the same way as the student paper is given away free. Now, maybe your college experience was different, but back in my day, yearbooks were available for purchase, but no one I knew bought one, and I had a general impression that it mostly featured the fraternities and sororities (though the Greek system was comparatively modest at MSU). It appears that a “free” yearbook is now yet another item that has been bundled into the tuition.
After looking around at the dorm, we did a quick circle through the center of campus. No major changes, just little things, like the fact that the intramural playing fields now included an astroturf football field.
But here’s the final, “bonus,” change: I noticed that several of the dorms (or, in one case, the central cafeteria surrounded by a dorm complex) had what was labelled an “Engagement Center,” so I looked this up on the MSU website. An Engagement Center appears to be a extensive set of student services: academic advising, extensive tutoring, a health clinic, space for student diversity groups, assistance with disability accommodations, and career advising. Now, some of this has always existed, but I don’t remember these extensive offers of tutoring, nor locating these services in every dorm grouping for “one-stop shopping.”
All of which adds up to a growing price tag. How much of the growing tuition and Room and Board bill is due to all these “enhancements,” I don’t know, but as a future tuition-paying parent, I’d much rather opt for a no-frills version.
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