Numerology

I don’t understand this odd fascination with numbers that end in “0” or “5.”

Last year, I graduated from college 19 years ago. No one cared. This year, I graduated from college 20 years ago. Now it’s a big deal, there’s a three-day reunion, I get these weekly reminder emails, they’ve started a special fundraising campaign, my phone rings early in the evening with calls from work-study students reading well-crafted scripts developed by the Development Office to drive home the message that my college still needs my money.

All because the number of years separating me from college now ends in a “0.” Woo hoo.

As I chatted with a representative of the Development Office the other night, I realized there is one number I do find interesting: 200%.

One of their glossy brochures had a fun list of “20 years ago...” facts and figures. Back then, tuition and fees were about $10,000. In 2006 dollars, that’s about $17,700. This year undergraduate tuition and fees at my alma mater are $34,150, or nearly 200% of what they were back in the mid-1980s. And don’t forget, college costs doubled after eliminating the effects of inflation.

Not everything goes up. I bought one of the first Apple Macintosh computers soon after I started college. I spent about $2,500 (about $5,000 in 2006 dollars) for a computer with an 8 Mhz chip, 128 KB of RAM, a 400 KB floppy disk drive and a low resolution monochrome 9 inch monitor.

This year I bought one of those new iMacs. For $2,000 (about $1,000 in 1984 dollars, or only about 40% of what I paid when I was in college), I got a 2Ghz chip (25,000% faster), 1 GB of RAM (781,250% bigger), a 250 GB hard disk drive (62,500,000% bigger) and a high resolution 24 inch monitor capable of displaying millions of colors (immeasurably better).

So the computer business now provides a vastly superior product for 40% of what it cost when I was in college. My college provides pretty much the same product for 200% of what it cost when I was in college.

Maybe we're not giving enough. Back when I was in college, the alums gave about $93 million a year, or $164 million in 2006 dollars. Today, the alums shell out $350 million a year, an after-inflation increase of 210%. In part because of this increase, since I graduated my college's endowment has increased nearly 400% after accounting for inflation. And yet the product stays the same, the tuition continues to climb, and they still need my money.

My college has a problem. It’s addicted to cash, a money-addled greedhead for whom no amount is ever enough. We must feed the beast more more more. At this point, if I give, I’m just an enabler. Someone has to break this cycle, and it might as well start with me, so to celebrate my 2oth reunion I think I’ll give nothing.

Instead of starving the beast into submission, though, I think I just gave it an excuse to jack up tuition even more.