Hidden-ball

Trustees try underhanded pitch--but it's not softball

Princeton’s price for a year of undergraduate education has three components: tuition, room, and board. Virtually all undergraduates live on campus and therefore must pay the room and board charges. Last year the trustees increased the total price for one year of undergraduate education by 4.9%, which was broken down among the three components as follows: tuition was increased by $1,550 (4.9%); room by $275 (6.0%), and board by $162 (3.9%) (see previous post “Bullpen by committee”). This year the trustees again increased the price, by approximately the same dollar amount ($1,780, compared to an increase of $1,987 last year) and by approximately the same percentage (4.2%, compared to 4.9%). However, this year the trustees have indulged in a sleight of hand—or, more accurately, a sleight of underhand (and not for the first time, see previous post “Balk”). They have broken the price increase down, among the three components, in an unprecedented way, as follows: tuition was not increased; room was increased by $1,095 (22.4%), and board was increased by $685 (15.9%). This underhanded allocation of the price increase enabled the trustees to issue a news release taking a magnanimous little bow for a budget that “holds tuition at its current level”. Superficially this appears to be a praiseworthy pause in the escalating costs of higher education, and, predictably, it has created that public impression. But it is in fact no such thing. It is the old hidden-ball trick. Well, not quite. Although the hidden-ball-trick and the hidden-tuition-trick have one thing in common (they both intend to deceive), they differ dramatically in legitimacy. The hidden-ball-trick is within the rules of the game, and baseball is a game. The hidden-tuition-trick affronts every rule of trust between educator and student, and raising the money to pay for private education in America today most assuredly is not a game.

So what could account for the trustees jive about “holding” the line on tuition? An infielder attempts the hidden-ball-trick only if he has a high opinion of his own duplicity or a low opinion of the baserunner’s smarts. I’m keeping my foot on the bag. You should do the same. It will be safe to resume your lead when you see a news release something like this:

“Princeton University announced today that there will be no undergraduate tuition for the next academic year. Room and board charges will be set at the free market cost of comparable accommodations located off-campus in Princeton and other Ivy League communities, based on a study being done by the university’s independent auditors, Deloitte and Touche.”

It may be a long inning.

Recommended reading: Professor Frankfurt’s On Bullshit.