Experts say the unusually high costs for everyday services at GW are a product of the University’s urban location and relatively affluent student body.
A report compiled by the Student Association last month found that the University ranks as one of the most expensive schools compared to its peer institutions in 11 categories, ranging from laundry to room key replacement and student health. Higher education experts said GW is likely forced to charge high rates for student services because of its location in one of the most expensive cities in the nation and the need to use tuition and student fees to bankroll University projects.
Provost Forrest Maltzman said he has reviewed the SA’s report and “it has already informed recent discussions.” The University aims to align its everyday prices with the costs of providing those services, he said.
“We know affordability is an important factor for many students and their families throughout their college experience, and I appreciate the report provided and the student lens it provided into affordability of services at GW,” Maltzman said in an email.
University spokeswoman Maralee Csellar said costs for services like a hard key replacement reflect “the cost for the University to replace the lock associated with the lost key as well as new keys for all of the necessary room occupants with a quick turnaround.” GW’s $150 hard key replacement fee and $35 GWorld replacement cost are the highest and second-highest, respectfully, among peer schools, according to the report.
Csellar said during a regular review of services in the fall, the hard key replacement fee was identified for “further evaluation” and changes to the price would be announced prior to the fall semester.
Affordability has also been at the forefront of official changes this year to the student dining plan and health insurance policy.
Experts in higher education said the SA report indicates that student expenses outside of tuition pose unanticipated financial barriers for students because they often don’t prepare for paying costs like laundry and textbooks. Since GW’s student population is relatively affluent, experts said the University may rely on high costs to fund its operating budget and decide to allocate more money in financial aid for students who can’t afford the higher costs.
GW students have the 26th-highest parental income in the country, with just 7.6 percent coming from middle or lower class families.
Ellen Schall, a senior presidential fellow and the chair of affordability efforts at New York University, said on an urban campus, NYU and GW students share the burden of higher inner-city expenses, like food and housing, which increase the cost of additional fees.
The District has the fourth-highest cost of living in the United States, while New York City is the most expensive city to live in, according to a 2016 report by U.S. News and World Report.
Still, NYU is placed on the lowest tiers of the SA report for expenses like printing paper transcripts, where NYU students pay nothing and GW students pay $15 per transcript. NYU students also pay $75 for a room key replacement, half of GW’s $150 price, according to the report.
“A lot of the costs that are pain-points for students are these costs of the components beyond tuition,” Schall said. “One of the things we share with GW is its acknowledgement that there is no one thing you can do, you have to look at all the components.”
But Sandy Baum, an expert in higher education at the Urban Institute who has published articles pertaining to college affordability, said the report is not a “meaningful” comparison because factors like endowment and location weigh into the price of student expenses, which varies by university.
The University’s $1.7 billion endowment is substantially lower than some of its competitors’, meaning officials rely on other income – like tuition and student fees – to fund its operations, she said.
GW has traditionally relied heavily on tuition to fund roughly 70 percent of its budget, making students’ payments to the University essential to its financial well-being.
The University may appear more expensive than its peers because GW is granting more students financial aid instead of bringing down these expenses for the entire student body, like some other schools do, she added. Last year, the undergraduate financial aid pool swelled by about 8 percent – the highest one-year increase since at least 2011 – to just less than $300 million.
“Could they find ways to spend less money? Sure, I’m sure there are all kind of things that go on, I’m sure there are things they could do more efficiently,” she said. “But they’re not charging you more than they’re spending on things to use.”
