Thomson: The Real Cost of $20.16
With just over a month until Commencement, my inbox has been besieged by cheerful blitzes encouraging me to contribute to the Senior Class Gift. These contributions are supposed to make a Dartmouth education affordable for the entering freshman class. More realistically, the recommended donations of $20.16 barely dent one of the more expensive price tags in the Ivy League: a $66,174 direct cost of attendance for the 2016-2017 school year. The Senior Class Gift’s primary utility, rather, is as an indicator of the graduating class’s satisfaction with the college, used as a public relations tool to compare our rate of giving with those at our peer institutions.