Make no mistake about it: students at Harvey Mudd College are overjoyed with the recent news that the average cost of attendance has risen to over $70,000 for the upcoming school year. With this news, Harvey Mudd is on track to retain its title as the most expensive college in the nation.
“It’s just so reassuring to know that I go to a school that seeks to improve in every aspect, and that absolutely includes cost of attendance.” said Francesca Ramirez ‘18. “If I’m going to take five-and-a-half classes each semester to graduate, I had better pay top dollar along the way!” Indeed, the increase is second to none, beating out Harvard University, Pomona College, and even inflation itself.
Exact reasons for the increase are unclear at the moment, but the school does have a number of expenses. Indeed, the expenses for the upcoming school year may include the long-awaited funeral for the school’s prank culture. Still, the mysterious nature of the increase has not dampened the excitement amongst the students or the administration. “I don’t think it’s a lot,” said one dean. “Just look at all the cheese students get! Do you think affordable state schools provide that much cheese?”
Though some may decry the rising cost of attendance as “completely unnecessary”, “needlessly greedy”, or “decidedly unappreciated”, those dissenters would do well to examine the school’s widely-touted return on investment statistic. “[The return on investment] is absolutely why I came here”, said Greg Novitz ‘20, prospective Computer Science major. “There is just no greater ‘impact on society’ than making bucketloads of money, so I’m glad the school advertises it as much as they do.” Future Harvey Mudd attendees need not worry: the excitement won’t be ending anytime soon.
Many HMC students anxiously await the next major milestone: $100,000. Ben Tilmux ‘19 hopes to realize the holy grail of college costs by the time he graduates – regardless of the potential impact on recruitment. “I like that HMC values diversity,” Tilmux said, “but I was worried it was all happening too fast. The ever-increasing cost sure is slowing this whole ‘diversity thing’ down, thankfully. I know the financial aid office is really good about meeting need, but I bet some high school students don’t even look at Mudd at all when they see that sticker price!” Yes, everyone is making sure to do their part, including the very people who set the cost in the first place.
“It started out as a fun little game”, said one HMC administrator about setting the increase each year. “We would keep increasing it until students would stop coming. When we realized we could never actually reach that point, we couldn’t figure out how to decide the exact increase each year. We settled on darts.”
In related news, realtors nationwide have reportedly been outraged over the total cost of attendance at Harvey Mudd, which now makes many houses on the market look cheap by comparison.
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