Virginia Tech 1990-91: about $2800 in-state.
My freshmen year at Stanford ( 1980 ) the tuition was about $11,000 and room/board was $5,000 or so. Books and fees probably added another $1,000 so the total was about $16,000. If I recall correctly, the tuition was inflation plus 1%.
The current estimate is $60,749.00.
My Alma mater, University of Pennsylvania (an Ivy, not to be confused with Penn State) charged, ready for this, $700/year in 1954. It went up by $100 each year since I graduated. Dorm was extra, but I was a commuter. Books were usually about $5 a piece and most could be bought second (or third) hand since they didn’t issue a new edition every year. I haven’t checked, but I am reasonably sure it has gone up by a factor of 50 or more.
Fall 1975 at UC Davis was $212.50 per quarter.
FSU in 1961. Tuition was $115 a semester, or $230 a year.
You also got to see all the home football games for free as part of the tuition.
Of course FSU had a mediocre football team back then, the team uniform colors were gaudy awful, and Sammy Seminole (a real goofy looking Indian caricature) was our mascot of sorts.
My first year at Columbia University, 1979, tuition was $2620 per semester.
I was waitlisted for their MFA in Fine Writing program in the 2007 academic year (which was really ironic since I didn’t get into any of the “you probably haven’t heard of them” safety state schools I applied to). I don’t remember the estimated tuition, but I remember that if a spot had opened up then for a 2.5 year program and after a partial scholarship and other free money I would have had to borrow around $80,000 for a degree whose marketability was iffy at best. I told them (politely) they could give my place in line to somebody else.
Since I withdrew I don’t know if I ever would have been admitted (i.e. if the waitlist folks were ever called up). It’s one of those “what might have been” things that I play with in my mind from time to time. In one scenario I stayed on the waitlist and went and I’m at a Venetian conference rubbing shoulders with Gore Vidal (who, because I got my MFA, didn’t die and is able to walk again) and John Irving, and in the other I’m living in Dead Yankee Holler, Arkansas teaching an adjunct course at Junior Samples Business and Automotive College by day and working the graveyard shift at Gas’N’Gun by night before going home to the 10 x 20 storage unit I share with two other adjuncts who like me have experienced scurvy and occasional homelessness due to student loan payments.
That sounds really cheap. Was that the list price, or did you get a discount of some kind?
That was just tuition. I lived with my family in Queens and commuted, so obviously I didn’t have to pay for room and board. Books and fees were extra. Tuition was $3890 a semester when I was a senior.
When my 9 year old son went to a local Catholic elementary school (he’s not there any more), his tuition was higher than what I used to pay at Columbia.
In 1990’s dollars? I seem to remember my tuition there was around $1000 in-state in 1983. Surely it didn’t almost triple in 7 years.
I went to a private liberal arts college in Virginia, and graduated in 1994. Tuition, room, board and fees were about $16,000 per year, which adjusted for inflation is around $24,000 in 2012 dollars. Looking at their website, total cost to go there now is around $48,000 per year. Jesus. I hope our daughter turns out to be good at sports.
When I was a freshman, tuition and fees was 23,000 per year (or two semesters). With room and board, the total cost was 33,000 per year. By the time I graduated, total yearly cost was 39,000 and currently it appears to be 41,000. I never paid anywhere near that amount though. I don’t think most people come anywhere close to paying sticker price, though.