Wednesday 1 May 2024

Tuition Chatter

 This past weekend, I was clearing out stuff and came to a 1976 notebook.  

In that fall (I was in the 11th grade)....they had bused us all to some county 'opportunities' day.  Here were five or six colleges....number of trade of schools, and the military recruitment folks.

My conversation with the Auburn/Univ of Alabama folks?  Yearly tuition was $1,500...books were $250, and a whole year of room/board was priced at $1,700 roughly.  I wrote all this into the notebook.

The trouble in assessing all of this...I had no idea of a real occupation or path.  

The military recruitment folks?  The Navy guy seemed hyped-up to interest me.  Marines....less so.  The Air Force had me sold but then the pay thing came up....E1 equaled $400 a month (taking out taxes/SS....you made around $300 a month). 

That Friday night came and I spent two hours thinking over this, and concluded on numbers....the Air Force path made more sense.

Funny, I kept the notebook over the years.  

If you tried to price Auburn today?  Year of tuition is around $12.5k....books around $1,200, and room/board near $15.4k.  Then you come to beer, insurance, and extra pocket-money....probably near $8k a year.

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