March 3, 2006

Finding financial “higher ground”

By MEGAN BETTELEY
meb002@marietta.edu

I am here because of an obscene amount of financial aid money and a dizzying amount of my parent's hard-earned cash. I know that I am not the only student in this situation, but when I received my two 9 Core Values mouse pads, I had to wonder where all of that beautiful green was going. How is the college spending our tuition dollars? How can a new library be built and complimentary mouse pads be distributed if the college is so strapped for money they have to bleed my personal wealth (or lack thereof)? Snazzy though the pads are, I know I could have sacrificed them for a bit of cash to pad my bank account.

It's all a matter of priorities, really. Marietta College is not a charity, but a business, and education is a dog-eat-dog kind of business at that. Dan Bryant, the Vice President of Administration and Finance, gave me a run-down on the budget. Seventy four cents out of each dollar you give the college is spent on the faculty, classrooms, academic support (ARC, Career Center, Writing Center), Student Services (CUB, student activities), financial aid, and auxiliary enterprises (Bookstore, Gilman, Residence Halls). The other 26 cents is used for overhead stuff, such as office staff, legal services, operation and maintenance, etc. Now, theoretically, the auxiliary enterprises should be self supporting; i.e., they should make money. In truth, the college depends on their profits, because the other five areas tend to swallow tuition dollars, rather like the way in which a black hole swallows light.

It requires about forty to forty-two million dollars to run Marietta every year. It turns out that that thirty grand we all come up with covers about 86% of the above. An additional 5 or 6 percent trickles in from Marietta's endowment. As those math majors out there have already figured out, that leaves 8 or 9 percent to be accounted for. Where does it come from? Generous alumni and community members toss in gifts of varying size to make up that last little bit, which explains why donors are given their two cents (or ten million dollars) worth when it comes to what the college uses that money for.

So, the college uses approximately thirty four to thirty six million dollars of our (yours, mine, and the other 12,998 students) personal wealth each year. I was rather curious about what area received the most of this money, and so I asked Dan Bryant to enlighten me. Without hesitation he explained that financial aid was the biggest black hole of the lot. Why, I asked, should this be the case? According to the Marietta webpage, 83% of students receive financial aid from the college, averaging 19,000 dollars a head. As this is the case, wouldn't it make sense to lower the tuition, thereby reducing financial aid? Both Dan Bryant and Kevin Lamb, the Student Financial Service Director, explained to me that it is not quite that simple. Lower tuition rates mean more students, less financial aid, and more tuition dollars. That's good. More students will also require more beds, more food, and more snazzy mouse pads, which, needless to say, is not so good.

The college walks a fine line, and I send a written salute to the people who have successfully balanced the college budget against the myriad forces that drag at funds. Nevertheless, simple solutions seem to work best, and Marietta needs to look closely at where our money is going. Lowering tuition costs can decrease the amount of financial aid needed (Muskingham successfully lowered tuition) and if lower costs increase the number of applicants, well, Marietta could raise its incoming academic standards (as it has proposed to do anyway). Judicious use of resources and lower, competitive prices work for Walmart and McDonald's. Perhaps those in the business of educating America should take a refresher course in basic economics.