I'm not in debt...my college is!?
I go to a small (less than 1000 students) private school in the south. Our stellar semester abroad program is abruptly being canceled by the powers that be due to economic reasons (read: they want our tuition money for that semester). I was going to participate in this program since my full tuition scholarship would transfer, but now it looks like a semester abroad will be impossible without going into debt or spending absurd amounts of money.
Speaking with the head of the center for international studies this morning, I learned that our school is $2.5 million in debt...this is confusing. Our school charges about 30K a year, gives out hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in scholarship money, has a huge endowment, is strongly supported by the (very wealthy) community, is constantly renovating buildings on campus, and can afford to send a 60-person choir to New York and Italy for a tour over spring break.
How did this happen? Who do they owe all this money to? How can it ever be paid off? And are they really going to begrudge the $200,000 in tuition money that would be lost for a handful of students to study abroad for a single semester? I'm dumbfounded!