College costs consume students' available cash flow

As a money-starved college student who can't even afford a parking ticket issued by campus security, I certainly wish a few things were cheaper.

On average, students spend $650 per year on books, and according to textbookfacts.org, that cost should be reduced.

Book publishers are part of the issue. Textbook publishing companies release new editions of their materials often with trivial modifications. Releasing new editions effectively destroys the resale value of the old book, and students are forced to buy new copies at their campus bookstores.

Relief may be on the way. The College Opportunity and Affordability Act sits in Congress and aims at driving textbook prices down. The act hopes to encourage the unbundling of necessary course materials so students only buy what they need. It will also force publishing companies to include pricing guides in sample teaching materials they send to professors. Professors will then know what they will be charging students by requiring a textbook.

Before forking over their coin at the bookstore, students must cover the enrollment fee.

The College Board estimated the average four-year student will pay $25,143 to attend a private university next semester and $6,585 to attend a public college. From last year, those are 5.9 and 6.4 percent increases, respectively.

The floodgates have opened, and the percentage of high school students moving on to college is higher than ever. The influx has left colleges and universities only one option to deal with higher enrollments: raising tuition prices.

State money wells are also drying up. St. Bonaventure students might not see the result of this as much as SUNY students do, but when universities receive fewer appropriations and grants from the government, they are forced to charge their students more.

For private universities like St. Bonaventure, endowments are one of the primary sources of funding. National economic difficulties have struck at those endowments, and even the flow of donation money usually given freely and often by alumni has ebbed.

Students fortunate enough to be able to afford an automobile will find feeding their keys to freedom becoming more expensive once again.

Those who have heard their parents reminisce about when gas was 25 cents per gallon can remember when a gallon of gas was cheaper than $2 - because it was less than three months ago!

According to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the average cost of a gallon of gas dipped below $2 in mid-December and stayed under that mark until Feb. 2.

Gas prices are creeping upward again. As summer approaches, prices will only rise. Government regulations on refinery emissions are stricter in the summer time, when ozone levels are high. Increasing regulation forces refineries to produce less, causing motorists to pay more at the pump. Before you cancel your summer road trips, experts don't anticipate a rise to the magnitude of last summer when, in August, the average price for a gallon was more than $4. We still pay more than a dollar less than we were last year at our cars' watering hole.

So, I would be happy if Top Ramen made its delicious chicken-flavored noodles a few cents cheaper per package. College students nationwide would find their pockets suddenly filled with wads of extra cash.