Briana Carroll '10 brought her car to campus for sophomore summer expecting to put the vehicle to frequent use. The increased cost of gas, which now rests at over four dollars a gallon, however, has forced Carroll to think twice before making even the smallest trips.
"Now I literally think about driving to the Co-op and West Leb," she said. "I pay for my own gas, and it is $65 to fill up now."
Students hoping to travel home from Hanover to see family and friends are also forced to face steep costs.
"It's $130 round-trip to go home," Lauren Ladolcetta '10, a resident of West Windsor, N.J., said. "I still go home because I want to see my boyfriend, but it means all the money I get from working goes to paying for gas."
Those traveling to school by plane are further affected by the rising cost of fuel, which has led some airline companies to limit the amount of baggage each passenger may transport, students said. Vanessa Szalapski '10 said when she flies to Hanover from her home in Minnesota, she is now only allowed to bring one bag on the plane, adding to the inconvenience of higher ticket prices.
Vans provided to students by the Tucker Foundation have similarly become more costly in the wake of gas price increases, according to Tucker administrative assistant Kathy Boivin, who added that she does not believe this change will be transmitted to individual programs that use the vans.
Rising fuel costs may also be affecting students at venues beyond the gas pump. Jack Stinson, owner of Stinson's Village Store on Allen Street, said that last month, the price of a case of beer increased dramatically -- a change he attributes to the higher cost beer companies must face to transport their product to Hanover. While truck drivers delivering beer used to spend $200 to $300 a day on fuel, they now spend up to $800 a day, Stinson said.
Students are paying between 80 cents to four dollars more for a case of beer, depending on the brand, Stinson said.
"The price increase on Keystone was not as much as it was on other beers," he said. "All the microbrews and foreign imports got whacked."
Several fraternity presidents said that their organizations have become more cognizant of the cost of gas in the face of these increases.
Sigma Nu fraternity Summer President Kevin Jackson '10 said that his organization is now paying far higher heating bills for its physical plant this Summer than in recent memory.
"From the fall of 2007 until now, we've already paid $16,000 in fuel, and for the same period of time including the Summer in 2006 we only paid about $10,000," he said.
This rising cost of fuel hurts Greek house budgets more than the College's budget, Jackson said, as fuel constitutes a larger portion of the organization's total costs.
"You've got to cut some expenses somewhere, or draft more people into the house and see what rooms you can make into doubles to try to make some more money," he said.
Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity now reimburses members who use their own cars to buy supplies for the organization, according to Summer President Clark Warthen '10.
Chi Gamma Epsilon fraternity has sold fewer parking spaces this Summer than in the past, although Summer President Ben Hemani '10 said he does not think this change is necessarily attributable to higher gas prices.
"We didn't sell out this term but there's nothing unusual about that," he said. "This Summer we only sold 7 or 8 [spots], but I think that's because of other houses undercutting our prices."
Although SAE does not rent its parking spaces, brothers' demands for spots has been similar to past years, Warthen said.
Simply having to drive a car to campus from home is enough of a barrier to stop some students from bringing cars to school, however. Jackson said he was planning to drive his sister's car from San Francisco to Hanover this summer, but will most likely abandon his plans due to the cost of driving it across the country.
Higher gas prices may also have an affect on the types of job opportunities available and attractive to students. Reyna Ramirez '10 said her job working for a doctor in Connecticut is "becoming less favorable" because she must make such a long commute to and from campus each week.
