Tuition & Costs

Southwestern College Cost for 2008-2009
Tuition (pays for 12-16 hours each semester)	$18,600
Room (double room)	$2,510
Meals (17 meals per week)	$3,112
Student Activity Fee	$100
Additional Expenses	$1,600
(All costs are for the entire year)

Want a more in depth look at tuition and fees view those here! (pdf file)

SC has an ongoing commitment to providing an affordable education while still offering the high-quality education of a comprehensive private college.

Every college student who has applied to SC and has been accepted will have a custom-created financial aid package. We’ll find the SC scholarships for which you qualify, locate appropriate grants, and provide information on the best loan options for the balance of your costs.

You’ll be asked to help by filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Once that’s complete, you’ll have the entire picture about the bottom line of an SC education.

Consider college tuition an investment, not a purchase

'Tis the season -- once the College Board releases its annual report on college tuition -- for columnists to put private colleges on the tee, pull out their drivers, and whack us just as hard and as far as they can on the subject of cost. Jeff Brown did exactly that in his "Finance Matters" column in last Sunday's Business & Money section.

Brown's complaint is familiar: Private colleges cost a fortune. And so is his suggested remedy: Go to a state school, it's a better buy. In Kansas, though, the facts don't support Brown's complaint or his remedy.

So, let's straighten it out. Brown writes, "Total annual charges at private four-year colleges now average more than $30,000... and many top schools charge well over $40,000."

There are 16 accredited, private, four-year colleges in Kansas. The average tuition at these colleges for the current school year is $15,854. In fact, Kansas ranks 37th out of 50 states in the cost of tuition to attend a private college.

If you add in room and board and other charges for students who live on campus -- to get to Brown's "total annual charges" number -- you get about the same picture.

The cost of going to a private college in Kansas is about two-thirds of the national average for private colleges. OK, private colleges in Kansas cost less. They still cost a lot, right? To answer that question we need to compare "sticker price" to "real price."

Brown is focused on the "sticker price" of private colleges, but that leaves out a crucial factor that makes private colleges affordable: the institutional scholarship and grant funds that they provide.

My college, Southwestern College, gives each student on our main campus in Winfield an average of $7,500 or more each year in institutional scholarships and grants.

All the private colleges in Kansas make that kind of effort to help students attend. For the 2005-06 school year, the average grant to a student at a Kansas private college -- institutional grants, state grants, and federal grants -- totaled $11,192.

Well, private colleges in Kansas cost less than the national average, but they still cost a lot more than state universities, right? It is true that the tuitions of private colleges are higher than tuitions at the state universities in Kansas and Oklahoma.

But again you have to look at "real price," the price after institutional scholarships are figured into the equation. Southwestern's $7,500 or more a year in institutional scholarships and grants is three to five times more than the institutional grants provided by the state universities in Kansas and Oklahoma.

One good indicator of how much it really costs to go to college is how much debt students have when they graduate. In 2004-05, the most recent years for which we have data, the average debt of a graduate of a private college in Kansas was $17,627.

The average debt of a graduate from one of Kansas' four-year universities was $16,183. The average debt of Southwestern graduates ($17,907) is about the same as the average debt of grads from Kansas State ($19,000) and KU ($17,243).

Because Southwestern students are much more likely than their public university counterparts to graduate in four years, their debt is pretty similar to grads of state universities. That fifth year costs money. Candor requires me to note that a larger percentage of private college students in Kansas graduate with debt than is true of public university graduates.

But even on that score the story is a little more complex than one might guess. Thirteen percent of students at the private colleges of Kansas are African-American or Hispanic (15 percent at Southwestern, 17 percent at Friends University). About 7 percent of students at the public universities in Kansas are African-American or Hispanic.

The kinds of students served by the private colleges of Kansas are a little more likely to need to borrow in order to meet their college expenses. None of what I have written is intended as a knock against public universities.

I graduated from Emporia State and Indiana University and members of my family have earned degrees from Fort Hays State, Wichita State and KU. We're happy alumni of great public universities.

My argument is with Jeff Brown. And my message to prospective students and their parents is three-fold:

1. Look for the college that is a great fit for you.
2. Then, see what the school can do to help you with the financial issues.
3. Always think of higher education as an investment, not a purchase.

College graduates make $37,000 more a year than high school graduates. They have more interesting jobs, are more engaged in their communities and are healthier.

Nothing else you spend money on will ever repay you as extravagantly as the money you invest in yourself to get a college degree.

- Dick Merriman, Southwestern College President

*This article was published in the Wichita Eagle November 12, 2006