Three or four times a week, Nicole Angeli straps on ropes and harnesses and clambers up the 33-foot climbing wall in the Johns Hopkins University recreation center. The 22-year-old senior says her strenuous climbs reduce stress from the demands of classes.
But the climbing wall, installed by Hopkins in 2002 at a cost of $100,000, also represents the lengths to which universities go to pamper students - and one reason why college costs have soared in recent years, far outstripping inflation.
Hopkins is now twice as expensive as it was 15 years ago. For next academic year, the total cost for Hopkins undergraduates, including tuition, room and board, will be $53,390. In 1994-1995, the cost was $27,040. But the sticker shock extends well beyond Hopkins; the average tuition at the nation's private colleges has more than doubled since 1995.
"Students are looking for Internet access and climbing walls and swimming pools," said Fred Puddester, senior associate dean for finance and administration in Hopkins' Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. "These are amenities that all of our competitors have and that we need to attract those students."
Of course, many other factors contribute to the rising costs. Universities have added programs and staff at a rapid clip. Faculty salaries have gone up. And Johns Hopkins, for instance, has to maintain two principal campuses, keep up aging buildings, update technology and cover health care for the largest private work force in Maryland.
For years, parents have grumbled about the escalating cost of private universities but paid up anyway. Rising family incomes helped cover the bills, and students and parents burdened themselves with loans, believing the high price of the schools would eventually pay off. The universities pitched in by funneling more money to financial aid from their ballooning endowments.
But with the economy in recession, endowments falling and tuition still climbing, college costs are coming under increasing scrutiny. As high school seniors and their parents make college decisions, experts say more people are deciding based on price and wondering why college is so expensive.
"I think we're reaching a point of consumer revolt," said William G. Durden, president of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., and a former Hopkins professor, who says costs have reached a "crisis" level. "There's going to be a point when we're going to wake up and, just like General Motors, boom, we're in bankruptcy."
