Check in to your new dorm room – and write another check?

http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2012/07/26/college-orientation-comes-with-a-hefty-pricetag/  College Orientation Comes With a Hefty Price Tag

In response to this article/blog in the Wall Street Journal about colleges fees, I offer the following advice: Get a fee list from the schools you are considering from the previous year and add that in to your total cost comparison.

A few years ago Augustana did away about half a dozen random fees – activity fees and dorm check-in fees and on and on.  Families barely figure out how to pay for the first term of school. They load up little (or big) Johnny in the car, pull up to the residence hall and BAM! another fee!  Kudos to Augustana’s administration for limiting these fees.  Granted, the fees were rolled into the overall tuition and fees number – but at least there aren’t a bunch of random of add-ons costs to the tune of hundreds of dollars as families are trying to acclimate (and afford) to having a college

student.

The blog listed above has to do with an orientation fee many colleges require for parents and students to “transition” from high school to college.  I guess I feel like this is just part of the J.O.B of the college – to be there for the parents and students and provide a transition, not for an extra fee, but because if a smooth transition saves even one student from quitting – the college has probable made up the cost of the transition/orientation program in the revenue generated from that student.

But…maybe I’m just insular in the sense that this type of thing – providing support and encouragement and information to the WHOLE family – is what great private liberal arts colleges do.  Our mission statement – to develop qualities of mind, spirit and body – seems to me to include family.   And it’s hard to feel good in your spirit when your family is scraping the bottom of the bank account to pay for orientation.