The value of Princeton is not in the size of its budget

Recently I was reading yet another newsflash on the troubled lives of college students.

Not one of those drunken-orgying-lifestyle pieces but one that actually resembled a real college environment. The CNN.com piece considered the woes of dunned and destitute undergrads being attacked by university fundraising efforts.

Universities, the article said, have been soliciting donations from increasingly younger and poorer alumni, and most recently have begun to tread into pre-alumni territory. Following suit, Princeton's Annual Giving department has already begun soliciting pledges from seniors. A public university official interviewed in the article said such efforts are intended not only to foster "tradition[s] of giving," but also to "[teach] students the true value of their education," defined as "what it really costs to run this giant machine."

Suddenly my mind shot back to the many teachers and administrators who, over the years, have lectured me and my classmates about the underappreciated "value" of our education.

At Princeton, it is an oft-cited statistic that student fees cover less than a quarter of the University's operating budget (22 percent, according to the 2004-05 Princeton Profile). And, as Princeton literature often brags, most recently in the Princeton Weekly Bulletin: "Even the students whose families can afford to pay full tuition at Princeton receive a discount, since the tuition they pay covers only about half of what their educations actually cost the University to provide."

At first, these figures sound quite impressive — especially since the underlying implication is that the greater the amount of money the University spends on us, the greater the "value" of our education. But the way the University brags about how great its education is and how generous it is for providing this education to its students is meaningless. The University trumpets the amount of money it purportedly spends per student, but spending in and of itself is no accomplishment.

After all, the value of a product is not determined solely by the costs — in whatever units — of its production. Suppose that the cost of a Princeton University undergraduate education is really as high as the University claims. No matter how many dollars go into producing that education, its "value" is only as much as consumers say it is. Product value is not wholly derived from production inputs; anyone who's ever failed a course they worked their arse off for knows this.

The amount of resources alone does not make any sort of statement about the use or misuse of the University's well-advertised financial resources. Yes, undoubtedly we Princeton undergrads are spoiled with University-bought goodies up the wazoo. This wazoo spoilage, if you will, is Alumni Giving's leverage for sending emails to current seniors asking them to "give back to Old Nassau."

We know we're in an academic utopia of speakers and libraries, but we're also submerged in an environment in which we have preceptors who can't speak English, we are closed out of non-selective courses — which alumni swear never happened "back in the day" — and where, heavens to Betsey, we're emotionally and physically traumatized by scant one-ply toilet paper provisions. Many of the famous faculty members who receive the highest salaries teach the least, and thus add little to the actual value of the average student's Princeton education. The University should not brag about its financial resources and generosity, but rather justify unpopular allocation decisions that prompt complaints because they appear to unnecessarily and stingily cut corners. If an institution must sacrifice some perks, which all do, it should trumpet the virtuosity of its production choices rather than distract detractors with awesome endowment stats.

I am not lamenting Princeton's superb treatment of its undergrads; I'm merely discrediting the relevance of discounted tuition and available financial resources in measuring the "value" of the education the school provides. As I've learned from the valued chunk of a Princeton education I've consumed thus far, the size of the budget doesn't matter; it's what you do with it. Catherine Rampell is a sophomore from Palm Beach, Fla. She can be reached at crampell@princeton.edu.