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http://dukecheck.com/

Mr. Brodhead's Math


The summer issue of Duke Magazine, aimed particularly at alumni, includes a column “From the President” which may or may not turn out to be a regular feature. And boy did the Deputy DukeCheckers perk up when they read what Uncle Dick — or his ghostwriter — had to say.

Speaking of the cost of attending Duke, which some see as spiraling out of control, Brodhead congratulates himself: “we have kept increases under tight control in recent years.”

So Dick is starting his 10th year with us — my how time flies. When he arrived from Yale, the bills for undergraduate tuition, fees, room and board totaled $39,240. If this sum had increased at the rate of inflation, the total for the school year that starts in a few weeks would be $48,505. But my oh my, the total actually will be $58,278.

This is what Uncle calls “tight control?”

Wait, wait, the apologist Schoenfeld might yelp. The President said “in recent years,” and the Deputies included all of the Brodhead years.

OK, we’ll do it Schoenfeld’s way. Five years ago, tuition, fees, room and board were $47,985. The on-line inflation calculator would move this to $52,041…. not $58,278 which is the total for the new academic year.

As we are sure Loyal Readers realize, tuition, fees, room and board are not the entire story of attending Duke, which is now beyond comprehension.

So, Uncle…. we beg to differ but you do not have this under control at all. In fact, if you did, there would be less of a need for you to focus so much of your effort on raising money for need-blind admissions.

(snip)

But we will leave our quibble about the total for another essay. Our most important point now is that to sustain the financial aid program that Team Brodhead has put into place, Duke is dipping into its endowment for scholarships at a far higher rate than it is for endowment reserved for other purposes.

Mr. Brodhead doesn’t tell you that.

What he is doing is robbing future generations. He’s hoping that somehow future Dukies can take care of themselves, and not be reliant on what we leave them.

We started this irresponsible course four years ago, when the Financial Aid Initiative turned out to be not enough at all. Though labelled as “a success” in every press release, it failed to reach its main goal on time, which was endowment for undergraduate financial aid. Moreover, the amount… in the $200 million range … was only half of what Executive Vice President Trask had said was needed in a Chronicle interview six months before the campaign began.

With Trask getting orders to proceed with his mouth shut, so we no longer can benefit from his analysis, we regret to say that the new giant fund-raising drive, Duke Forward, has not seen a single major gift for endowment of undergraduate financial aid since it went public ten months ago.

Moreover, we cannot find out what the goal is. That’s one way of insuring that you reach it!