At the end of March, the University's Board of Trustees will make its final decisions about next year's budget. Currently, the Board plans to vote on a raise of the cost of attendance for the second year in a row by roughly four percent for the coming school year, raising incoming student costs to about $59,000.

Even before this anticipated price hike, the Boston Business Journal ranked Brandeis as the second-most expensive college in Massachusetts based on last year's cost. It is clear the University must be more frugal and resourceful in its spending. This need is amplified by the effects of the economic crisis as families are still struggling to recover and obtain basic needs.

During his recent State of the Union address, President Barack Obama announced a tool, the College Scorecard, that intends to help families with limited budgets find "where [they] can get the most bang for [their] educational buck" when picking colleges. This approach of cost-based analysis is not only appropriate for comparing schools, but also appropriate for a variety of fields.

For example, in the realm of health care, health economists use cost-based analysis to compare different treatments. They would assign a monetary value to the benefits of one treatment, and perform a benefit-cost ratio calculation. They perform the same calculation on the other treatment as well, and the one that yields the higher ratio would be the smarter investment for society.

Cost-base analysis is not only implementable for health care technology, but it may also be a pragmatic approach for allocating scarce budget resources in universities that face constraints and have few other solutions other than raising prices. Evident in the constant increase in cost of attendance, Brandeis seems ripe for such an analysis.

Some of the investments that Brandeis undertook in recent semesters suggest that the time for proper spending analysis and allocation is long overdue. For instance, while I have nothing against last year's reopening of the Rose Art Museum or the pool in the Joseph M. Linsey Sports Center, realizing that they add to Brandeis' heritage and prestige, I question whether they were the most pressing investments to make during a time of high costs and economic stagnation. The museum's renovation cost the University about $1.7 million, while the pool's renovations cost $3.5 million (although donor Thelma Linsey did contribute $1 million to the latter initiative).

A considerable portion of last year's cost increase can be attributed to these projects. In April 2012, former Student Union President Herbie Rosen '12 voiced his concerns about these investments. He thought that "it [was] unsettling that the University [was] relying on [students'] tuition for prior financial situations" such as the repairs of the museum and pool.
Although the museum and the pool are useful resources for many members of the Brandeis community, an investment in campus housing, a resource used by all students, would have been more appropriate. The funds could have been dedicated to refurbishing and reinforcing infrastructure such as older residence halls, which include the first-year and sophomore dormitories. Almost every first-year and sophomore student lives year-round in dormitories that are not in strong condition and need modernizations.

More resources could be dedicated to repairing the Castle and modernizing East Quad, both of which are aging and deteriorating. Both quads have known problems with insects, infestations and leaks, among other issues.

Taking on these projects would require resources, but their benefits can produce a higher benefit-to-cost ratio, because they will help almost every resident and visitor of East Quad and the Castle, where an overwhelmingly high percentage of students will live at some point during their Brandeis careers. Furthermore, the distinguishing feature between such investments and the museum or the pool, is that they would resolve the most salient issues that students face on a daily basis, rather than add an extra investment that students may not utilize as much.

In a time of limited resources, we need to wisely choose the investments that are truly important and will yield a larger benefit for their cost.

We must decide which investments really matter to our everyday lives, and those that we can put off until we have more stable and abundant financial resources.

I still say that the most pressing investments for Brandeis' resources should be its high-caliber undergraduate education, as well as quality, but economic, living conditions for its students. Brandeis families pay large amounts of money every year for an excellent education, and they expect that the most basic products that the University offers them meet high standards.

Andrew Flagel, senior vice president for students and enrollment, has criticized the Boston Business Journal's state ranking of Brandeis' costliness, saying that Brandeis cannot be perceived as a state institution when it is actually a national institution, and should be compared instead to colleges nationwide.

I do want to point out however, that with the Class of 2016, more than one-third of its students are from the New England region, and when those families make decisions between attending a cheaper state school or Brandeis, the comparison of Brandeis' costs versus state school's costs does matter. As costs are about to rise for most families, the University needs to make better considerations in setting its investment priorities.
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