interesting numbers

Drive to Burger King

Buy a Texas Triple Whopper

Enjoy your meal !

*Offer valid only in Texas

Nutritional information source: www.calorieking.com

Yesterday, I was trying to read up something on the origin of social security numbers, and found a lot of interesting facts about them through various sources. I am compiling them below and hopefully it will provide some interesting reading material in this boring tax season. To my learned readers, some of the information might seemed cliched, but I am sure there are a lot of people out there who have never heard about most of these facts. Here is what I found out:

• The original social security card was designed by Fred Happel of Albany, N.Y in 1936. He was paid $60 for his work.
• The first social security record was established for John David Sweeney on December 1, 1936 with a social security number of 055-09-0001. However, this is not to be confused with the *first social security card* issued. No one can point out the first card issued because hundreds of thousands of them were distributed around the same time through 45,000 post offices throughout US. Ironically, Sweeney died at the age of 61 without receiving any social security benefits.
• The lowest SSN was given to Grace D. Owen of Concord, New Hampshire in 1936 and it was 001-01-0001.
• The first recipient of social security benefits was Ernest Ackerman who received a lump-sum payment 17 cents in 1937.
• Social security numbers are not allocated serially; meaning, the first number ever issued was not the lowest and the latest number issued will not be the highest.
• So what’s the meaning of the numbers on the card? Most people probably know this, but I will mention it nevertheless. Below is a schematic of a typical social security card.

  

  The first three digits are called the area number, the next two digits are called the group number, and the last four digits are the serial numbers. The area numbers are assigned on the basis of the zip-code on your SSN application. The group numbers are just for bookkeeping purposes only, they don’t have any specific meaning. In each group number, the serial numbers are allocated consecutively from 0001 to 9999.

• Area numbers increase from east/northeast coast to west coast. People living on the east/northeast coast have the lowest area numbers (for example, people who apply for SSN from New Hampshire have the lowest area numbers) whereas, people living on the west coast and southwest areas have the highest area numbers.
• Apparently, there have been rumors in the past about the group numbers being used for racial profiling. Here is an interesting *clarification* on www.ssa.gov regarding group numbers:
  

  Apparently due to the fact that the middle digits of the SSN are referred to as the “group number,” some people have misconstrued this to mean that the “group number” refers to racial groupings. So a myth goes around from time-to-time that encoded in a person’s SSN is a key to their race. This simply is not true.

• 078-05-1120 is the most misused social security number ever….some 40,000 people have claimed this SSN as their own. Here is the story behind it:
  

  In 1938, wallet manufacturer the E. H. Ferree company in Lockport, New York decided to promote its product by showing how a Social Security card would fit into its wallets. A sample card, used for display purposes, was inserted in each wallet. Company Vice President and Treasurer Douglas Patterson thought it would be a clever idea to use the actual SSN of his secretary, Mrs. Hilda Schrader Whitcher.The wallet was sold by Woolworth stores and other department stores all over the country. Even though the card was only half the size of a real card, was printed all in red, and had the word “specimen” written across the face, many purchasers of the wallet adopted the SSN as their own. In the peak year of 1943, 5,755 people were using Hilda’s number. SSA acted to eliminate the problem by voiding the number and publicizing that it was incorrect to use it. (Mrs. Whitcher was given a new number.) However, the number continued to be used for many years. In all, over 40,000 people reported this as their SSN. As late as 1977, 12 people were found to still be using the SSN “issued by Woolworth.”

• From the start of the program in 1936 till 2005, an estimated $8.9 trillion have been paid out as social security benefits. In the same period, the program has received $10.7 trillion in income.
• In the present times, invalid social security numbers include numbers with set of zeroes ( as in 000-xx-xxxx, xxx-00-xxxx, xxx-xx-0000), numbers starting with 666, numbers from 987-65-4320 through 987-65-4329 - which are marked for advertising, and numbers with the starting three digits above 770, which are not yet allocated.
• Social security numbers are not reassigned after a people die. Here is what socialsecurity.gov says about it:
  

  We do not reassign a Social Security number (SSN) after the number holder’s death. Even though we have issued over 420 million SSNs so far, and we assign about 5 and one-half million new numbers a year, the current numbering system will provide us with enough new numbers for several generations into the future with no changes in the numbering system.

References:

• Social Security History , government source
• How Social Security Numbers Work, Howstuffworks.com
• Social Security Number, Wikipedia
• Image sources: www.howstuffworks.com and www.ssa.gov

Everyone wants to be *rich*, right? (duh). Almost everyone who wants to be rich would be tracking his/her net worth very closely through some kind of a balance sheet. But sometimes, I wonder if most of us really understand what *rich* (or wealthy) means in terms of our assets, liabilities, and net worth. Here are a few example questions that can quickly cause confusion in this respect:

• If you compare your net worth now to your net worth 5 years ago, how would you know if you are wealthier now than in the past?
• Are two people with the same net worth equally rich?
• Between two people, is the one with greater net worth wealthier than the other?
• Are people with more income wealthier than people with less income?

The questions look trivial don’t they? Instinctively, most of us (including me) would start looking at the net worth numbers on a balance sheet to and attempt some kind of a comparison. The problem with this approach is that raw net worth numbers can totally throw you off the track.

Some bloggers (like Flexo and Ben) have discussed the importance of ratios (as opposed to raw net worth) in evaluating your financial situation, but may be, even these are not enough to determine whether you are wealthy (for reasons that will be clear with the examples). I will consider two popular ratios for this post:

• The debt/income ratio: Lower is better; lowest possible value is zero.
• The assets/debt ratio: Higher is better; highest possible value is infinity.

Here is another method (rule of thumb) proposed in “The Millionaire Next Door” by Stanley and Danko to find out whether you are wealthy or not (let’s call this Stanley and Danko rule):

Multiply your age times your realized pretax annual household income from all sources except inheritances. Divide by ten. This, less any inherited wealth, is what your net worth should be.

Now, lets assume that there are 5 friends (say V, W, X, Y, and Z) all 30 years old. Your task is to compare their balance sheets and determine the richest of them all. Their income, debt, net worth, and assets are shown graphically below. For each of them, the two popular ratios mentioned above and their classification according to Stanley and Danko are given along with the graph (if you apply the Stanley and Danko rule to them, at their present age, they would be categorized as “wealthy” if their net worth is equal to or more than three times their income). Your job is simple, just look at them and help me locate the *richest*. I will make it even simpler for you by making their net worths the same (all of them have a net worth of $60,000).

Mr. V’s info: Debt/Income ratio = 0; Asset/Debt ratio = infinity. Stanley and Danko rule says - wealthy

Mr. W’s info: Debt/Income ratio = 1.5; Asset/Debt ratio = 3. Stanley and Danko rule says - wealthy

Mr. X’s info: Debt/Income ratio = 0.6; Asset/Debt ratio = 3. Stanley and Danko rule says - not wealthy

Mr. Y’s info: Debt/Income ratio = 1.2; Asset/Debt ratio = 2. Stanley and Danko rule says - not wealthy

Mr. Z’s info: Debt/Income ratio = 1.33; Asset/Debt ratio = 1.75. Stanley and Danko rule says - not wealthy

So go crazy with all the ratios you want and drop a line with your answer as to who is the wealthiest among the 5 guys.
I have deliberately not specified the purpose of this post; by the time you work out on who is rich, you will figure that out yourself. I think this might be a learning moment for some of us and the assumptions that we make about our and other people’s net worth.

If you extend your results to future years, who, do you think, will be the richest in the long run?

Also, if you were to ignore the ratios completely and just go with a gut feeling…who one would you point out as the richest?

The other day, I was looking for some information on Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, when I stumbled upon the 2006 Forbes.com list of world’s billionaires (OK, this link is now pointing to the 2007 list. I haven’t yet figured out where they hid the 2006 list. Will update as soon as I find it). So, I started tinkering around with the list trying to look at it after sorting it in different ways and got interested in the age distribution among the billionaires. I will share some of that information in this post. But, before I throw some interesting (but pretty much useless) graphs and data at you, here are a few words of admiration for the billionaire who drives this 1993 Volvo 240 GL:

Yeah, that’s Ingvar Kamprad’s car! I don’t know what it takes for a man worth $23 billion to drive a car like that. May be it’s sheer indifference for the concept of *status symbols* or may be it’s frugality personified. Whatever it may be, driving that kind of car, when you are a billionaire, is suggestive of awesome self-control. Here is what Forbes.com says about the man and his frugal attitude.

Founder of the Swedish furniture and home goods company IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad is the proud owner of a 13-year-old Volvo 240 GL. Though he may own a Volvo, Kamprad still takes the bus and even uses his pensioners’ discount card, as he explained in a rare 1999 interview. Despite being a double-digit billionaire, Kamprad also still flies economy class and avoids luxury hotels. In fact, in his self-scribed 1976 Bible, “A Furniture Dealer’s Testament,” Kamprad decries that “IKEA people do not drive flashy cars or stay at luxury hotels.” Indeed, Ingvar Kamprad practices what he preaches.

With that out of the way, let’s now look at some interesting facts about the list. I have included a few Excel charts, but I hate to say that there is nothing *instructive* in those (at least not for the casual reader)…they are just presenting the facts in a better way.

• There are 793 billionaires on the list.
• Age of the youngest billionaire: 22 (the 2006 list is probably based on 2005 numbers, so look at the ages accordingly)
• There are 4 people under 30 years of age and all of them are rich because of inherited wealth.
• The youngest *self-made* billionaire is Sergey Brin (age 32), followed closely by Larry Page (age 33), both founders of Google.
• Oldest on the list: Ernest Gallo (age 97) a California wine maker.
• Out of the 793 people, there are 371 (almost 47%) Americans on the list! Do we have a lot of money or what.
• Based on the list, the top 8 countries in terms of number of billionaires are shown below. The US dwarfs the rest of them. China has 8 billionaires and Hongkong has another 17. Their combined total can take them up to the 5th place.

• Below is a chart showing the age distribution of the list. Much more than half of them are over 60 years old. There is an increasing trend up to the 60-69 age category which is probably suggesting the gradual increase in wealth over the years. The numbers start falling in the 70’s - most probably due to some rich guys dying and others distributing their wealth among their children/family members. Btw, the ages of 32 people on the list were not available, so the numbers won’t add to 793.

• The collective net worth of 400 richest Americans (all billionaires) is $1.25 trillion. Below is a chart showing the age distribution of the 400 Americans with net worth more than $1 billion. Btw, there is some sort of an inconsistency with the Forbes.com lists….if there are 400 American billionaires in a different list, the world’s richest list should include 400 Americans, not 371. I haven’t yet figured out what’s up with that. Anyways, if you compare this chart with the chart above, you can see that they are almost similar in trend and proportions…so there is nothing abnormal happening in the US…and yet there are 400 billionaires. Does sound like a lot of business opportunities and may be too many people spending too much money and making the businesses rich.

Any thoughts/observations about why there is such a disparity between the number of billionaires in America and the rest of the world? Do you think it’s some kind of a reflection on the American way of life?

I have been thinking about this for quite some time. I think about this every time I hit the freeway and involuntarily increase my speed up to 5 ~ 10 miles per hour above the legal limit. I thought really hard about this when I got my last speeding ticket about 3.5 years ago for driving 19 mph above the limit. Finally, I have made up mind to write about it….just needed to flush those numbers out of my system. I will probably qualify for the smart-ass of the year award for this post. Whatever.

Speeding to save time?

Let’s look at some typical scenarios and see how much time we save by speeding to our destination. I have considered three cases that most of us would usually come across:

• Case 1: short distance, low speed limit - This applies for most in-town driving. Clearly, speeding in this case makes no sense at all. In the chart below, look at the time saved by going 20 mph above the limit…just 5 minutes ! Doesn’t seem like it’s worth it, does it? Plus, if you drive at 60 mph in a 40 mph zone, you will be noticed (by cops perhaps). Also, in some areas/cities, the traffic lights are synchronized in such way that, if you drive 10 mph over the limit, you will keep hitting red lights often.

• Case 2: medium distance, high speed limit - This applies more to situations when you are driving to a nearby town/city. Most of us will generally prefer the freeway for such distances and hence the 70 mph speed limit. If you are like me, you would probably start cruising at 5~10 mph over the speed limit. But look at the graph below. Going 10 mph above the speed limit is saving you just a little more than 5 minutes. You could potentially take less time by speeding more, but you need to look at the risk analysis (scroll down for that) before you do that.

• Case 3: long distance, high speed limit - This is about driving to a far away town/city. Alright ! so this time you can save 19.29 minutes by driving at 80 mph instead of 70 mph. This one sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Well, if you look at it with only a slightly practical point of view, this doesn’t sound very promising either. You will save 19.29 minutes if you drive constantly at 80 mph for the full 180 miles. In all probability, over longer distances, your average driving speed may be well below 80 mph, considering general traffic, road conditions, traffic lights, etc. You may occasionally pump it to 80 mph, but then that’s not going to save you the full 19.29 minutes.

Speeding vs. risk, a trade-off
Risk is a inseparable part of the speeding package. To really make sense of whether speeding is worth the time saved, we should look at the risks involved. First, let’s look at the risk of getting a speeding ticket in the event that you have a speed measuring laser pointed at your vehicle. The graph shown below is just to give you a feel of how the risk changes with speeding. Note that, there are different laws in different states and this may not be specifically apply to you. More details about state-specific laws can be found here.

Btw, if you are mathematically inclined, I have used a sigmoid function to draw this graph and assumed that the chance of getting a ticket, when driving 10 mph above limit, is 50%. This particular graph is for a 70 mph speed limit, but you can apply it to any speed limit. OK, all this is a bit geeky, but stay with me here. The point is to show that about 5~6 mph above the speed limit you probably won’t get pulled over for speeding (some states even have official tolerances in this zone). However, beyond this, your luck will start vanishing very rapidly. If you desperately want to speed, your best chances of not getting caught are in Zone 1 and Zone 2 (when you are not going more than 10 mph above the speed limit).

Now, go back to the charts that showed the time gain and look up the time gained by driving just 10 mph above the limit in all of them. Do you still find it worth?

More risks and costs

If you are still not convinced, let me throw some hackneyed reasons at you. May be, against the above background, these things will make a greater effect here.

• Accidents: risk to life - You must have heard this a zillion times. Speeding is just not safe. Speed limits are put up for a reason…they are not just there to frustrate the hell out of you. Some people probably must have spent their lives trying to determine the optimal speed limits for certain roads. Show them some respect.

• Fuel: cost of increased consumption - Speeding costs money. Here is a some sort of a quantification by the government (here is the source):
  

  As a rule of thumb, you can assume that each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.20 per gallon for gas.

• Tickets: cost of fines - Most fines hover in the range of $70 to $150 when you are speeding between 0-20 mph over the limit. Plus, there are court fees and other associated costs (like a driving safety course fee) involved when you get a ticket.

• More monetary loss: cost of insurance - You won’t be very happy with your insurance premiums if you have a couple of tickets sticking in your driving record. Of course, all tickets don’t lead to this, but you should keep this in mind.

• The cost of lost peace of mind: There are other intangible costs that go beyond monetary values, like stress while driving, stress after getting a speeding ticket, overall loss of time if you are required to go to court and stuff, etc.

You could reduce some/all speeding ticket associated risks by using radar detectors and such, but those things won’t warn you of an impending accident risk on account of your speeding.

Or you could just relax, drive within speed limits, and enjoy your driving. I think I am going to try doing just that.

Infinite speed limit image source: www.continuum2.com

Here is a list 10 weird listings that I found on eBay the other day. Some are incredibly expensive and some are just outright ridiculous. It will be nice to see you guys take your guesses on which one is genuine and which ones are fake. Also, I have some unanswered questions at the end of the list..in case you happen to know more about this.

$99,000 laptop : The auction for this is now closed, but this thing existed the first time I found it. May be someone mistakely placed the bid (or someone’s kid punched in the wrong numbers)

$385,000 airplane home: I cannot believe what (and how) these guys are selling. Here is what it says in it’s description:

The Airplane Homes are made to be up in the wind. Some hilltop lots are not suited for a conventional homes but are ideal for an airplane home. Hurricane Proof, the airplane home can survive a hurricane - and no plywood window covers required.

Also, it’s not an auction, it’s a classified, but it does appears along with the other auctions. Btw, this guy has like 100% positive feedback ! He must be doing something right (?)

$30,000 wooden shoes (sorry just one shoe!): This sounds absolutely fishy (to me)…plus the bad grammar.

Still now, you can tell its soul and its purpose, by the feel. Its purpose is :TO DELIVER A LOVE MESSAGE. I sell it because I have no-one to whom is worthwhile to give it, and it seems to me that it’s a waste seeing that the love it was created for is still living within it,set into the male-oak veins.

$19,000,000 black diamonds: Lots of black diamonds on sale here. NY guys will have to pay 8.625% tax ($1,638,750). 100% positive feedback. Good luck

$20,000,000 motorcycle (err…just the patent): Some weird motorcycle drive patent. First I thought it’s the motorcycle; but no..it’s just the patent. This one again is not an auction, its a classified.

Hydro-drive transmission-less drivetrain. With our technology it is possible to achieve a 96% efficient drive system that will retain both speed and torque….This patent is a small price to pay for stockholder security.

$19,999,999 painting: I don’t know who is Eden Folwell. That alone disqualifies the $19,000,000 price tag. Plus, it’s not like it has some antique value, it’s created in 2007 (duh! it’s about an airplane crash).

$19,999 football tickets: Ok, right now the link points to a different product, but this guy was selling$19,999 tickets just before the game. Look at the image below that I captured at the time.

Another $20,000,000 patent: I have no idea what this means. I tried to read through the patent on uspto.gov, but could make anything out of it.

Wait..it’s not $20,000,000..here’s an excerpt from the author’s description (now this sounds fishy):

My current agenda is simply to sell licensing rights to my U.S. Patent #6,292,828 (read it at uspto.gov), or to sell it outright, if anyone is willing to pay my price: $2 billion USD. The price as listed ($20 million) only represents the minimum value of licensing rights available; the full price of transfer of ownership of the Patent is $2 billion. (A maximum price of $21 million is permitted by eBay’s format).

$206,000,000 yatch: This is the most expensive item I found. On eBay listing it says $99,000,00, but in the description it gives the real price.

$2,800,000 painting (don’t click on this link if you are easily offended): The link leads to the “original” painting depicting a man showing the finger. Painted in 1996. This is again from a seller with a 100% positive feedback. The auction claims:

Original Oil Painting Casimo XXXV Stolen from Vatican

I have a few questions on all this.

1. Who is the target audience for these ads/auctions? I am pretty sure people who spend $2 million or $200 million, don’t buy their stuff on eBay.
2. Why does eBay have a $100 million limit on the ads? Does it really expect people will sell/buy stuff worth that amount?
3. Some of the ads appear real, and some don’t, some may be pure mistakes, how does one find out what’s real and not? Feedback rating is not the answer. There are some fishy ads in the above list with 100% positive feedback. (I am not talking of some genuine goof-ups…probably like the laptop computer in the above list)
4. Is there any manual checking of very high amount ads/auctions? I am not sure what kind of regulations eBay places on high amount purchases, but seems to me like people might take disadvantage of the situation and indulge in money laundering activities.

Please enlighten me if you have some insight into this matter.

If you tell someone that you are in debt, the first advice most people will offer you is “stop spending”. Occasionally, you will also hear about how David Bach’s “latte factor” is hurting your ability to get rid of your debt (technically the latte factor is about increasing wealth over the long term, but you can also look at it as if it’s about reducing debt over the long term). When I say *stop spending* advice, I am talking about advice of this kind:

If you are facing a debt that’s taking you down in a hole, you need to stop buying those clothes, shoes, junk burgers, coffee, electronic doodads, useless magazine subscriptions, cigarettes, movie subscriptions, and everything else that is not necessary to keep you alive and divert every penny towards your debt. Basically, live like a caveman if that helps.

Those are my own words from sometime in the past :).

While there is nothing wrong with such an advice, things are always easier said than done. The problem lies in the fact that this advice ignores the “happiness factor” completely. Here, I define the happiness factor as the measure of happiness that is associated with some of the things mentioned above (coffee, burgers, clothes, etc.,).

I have been thinking about that lately, and ran some quick numbers on a hypothetical person in debt. The point of this exercise was to compare a *stop spending* approach (or the latte factor approach) with a smarter spending approach towards reducing debt. Hopefully, the series of charts will do all the talking. I will add some comments to highlight a few points of interest.

In the first chart below, there are some (to keep it simple, I have included just a few) of the typical monthly expenses for Mr. DD (Drowned in Debt). Mr. DD is like the rest of us, and enjoys watching a few movies and eating out once in a while. Most of his monthly income goes towards the rent and the car payment.

Based on this, the chart below shows Mr. DD’s calculated annual expenses. Also, his debt is shown alongside so that we have a better perspective of his financial situation.

Now, let’s give Mr. DD a *stop spending* advice. According to this, Mr. DD stops his “latte”…or in essence, stops all his sundry spending on stuff like movies, clothes, etc. This is shown in the chart below. Do you see what has happened? The latte factor is no longer there (he saves $1320), but he has ignored the two most expensive things that he is spending his money on. He applies the $1320 to this debt, and reduces it to $8680. But, he is not very happy here because he has deprived himself of the *happiness factor* while doing this.

Now another smart fellow gives him a smart advice. He tells Mr. DD to look for a slightly cheaper apartment, and a slightly cheaper car. Now, instead of cutting his Latte Factor, Mr. DD decides to follow this advice and spends his money smartly. His annual expenses with this approach are shown in the following chart. Notice that he has reduced is annual car expenses by $660 and rent expenses by $660. Again, he applies the savings ($1320) to his debt and reduces it to $8680. But, this time he is happy because he has been able to keep up with the small enjoyments in his life while doing this.

The other obvious advantage in this approach is that he has reduced those expenses that appear in the form of a long-term contract. Meaning, once he chooses a cheaper car or a cheaper apartment…his savings are automatic over the rest of his contract. It’s not like stopping your Starbucks latte…a little bit of stress and you will be back to Starbucks in the next hour.

To bring this to a closure, Mr. DD’s corresponding monthly expenses are compared to the original expenses below. Notice that by spending his money smartly, he just needs to make minor compromises when it comes to the apartment and the car, instead of stopping everything that gives him happiness.

Hopefully that conveys what I originally intended to convey.
With this, I am not encouraging frivolous spending; I am just acknowledging the fact that there are a few things you need to spend on to keep yourself happy. I am also trying to draw some attention towards the fact that sometimes, we tend to ignore the bigger things that are causing financial problems. In my opinion, we fall for the latte factor quickly because it is much more visible than other subtle (sometimes bigger) problems. Cut the latte if you want, but before you do that, make sure you have taken care of other expensive things in your life. Of course, you could be even wiser and tweak your latte expenses a little bit, but even in that case, your first priority should be to check on the bigger problems first.

Other articles on these lines that may interest you:

-Forget About the Latte Factor : by Flexo @ Consumerism Commentary.

-Want to Save? Give up the Big Things! : by JDRoth @ Get Rich Slowly

Updated: Click here for an interesting counter-arguement by a blogger friend.

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Consider this post as a continuation of my earlier post “Tuition and Fees: The Cost of Higher Education“. I dug out some old data on the tuition and fees for graduate students in our university and made some quick graphs. These are shown below. The first graph shows the increasing trend in fees from the academic year 1997-98 through present. The cost has been rising pretty fast in the last few years…although the rate of increase is showing signs of easing a bit.

In the second graph below, I have just included a simple linear regression fit (available in Excel) with this data (the red line is the fit) and made a prediction after 10 more years. Please note that this is as absolute simplistic as you can get with predictions…it won’t be very accurate, but will give a general idea of where things may be heading.

According to this crude prediction, in the next 10 years, our tuition will rise to approximately $19,500 ! Man..people are going to have a hard time encouraging young students for higher education.

Advertisement follows:

See here for research on the tuition and costs associated with distance education degrees from online universities.

Here are some interesting amounts that I and my fellow graduate students face, at the beginning of every semester, at our university. If you take a look at our tuition and fee statement, it’s very plain and simple with just two entries and looks like this:

We get such a bill for 3 times a year: fall, spring and summer. The above amounts are for 9 credit hours that I took this spring. The summer tuition comes out to be slightly lesser because we are required to take just 6 credit hours instead of 9. The required fees are almost the same for all three semesters (only slightly less in summer). Also, note that it’s a public university, ranking among the best in the country for most areas of study.

The current annual amounts for graduate studies in this university look like this:

Tuition: $4236.30 * 2 (fall + spring) + $4236.30 *(6/9) (summer) = $11,296.80

Required fees: $908.97*3 = $ 2726.91

Total = $ 14,023.71

I work for the university as a research assistant (sometimes as teaching assistant), and that takes care of my tuition (just the tuition, not the required fees)…but I do get a bill for the full tuition due. If I have a research or teaching assistantship, my department pays that bill for me. But, that’s beside the point of this post. Back to the cost of education…

That entry in the fee statement “Fees required of all students” is a blackbox with a lot of charges. Here is what comes under that category per semester, rounded to nearest whole number (annual amounts are in brackets):

1. Advising fee: $80 ($240)
2. Bursar fee: $5 ($15)
3. Computer Access fee: $170 ($510)
4. Energy fee: $99 ($297)
5. Medical Services: $60 ($180)
6. ID card: $3 ($9)
7. Library: $197 ($591)
8. Software licensing: $11 ($33)
9. Sports center: $98 ($294)
10. Student services fees: $126 ($378)
11. Transportation fees: $60 ($180)

I can understand some of the fees, but others are just ridiculous. In my case, the major wastage occurs with the “advising fee” (I still don’t know what are these for), “student services fees” (again, no idea), transportation fees (I live very close to campus), medical services (haven’t used the facility even once since I started grad school). Also, library access ($591) and computer access ($510) are really very steep. Also, none of these fees are optional.

If you add housing and boarding expenses to the above numbers, the total annual expenditure will be in the range of $20,000 ~ $25,000, depending on your style of living (spending).

So there you go..that’s what most grad students will be paying for their education. I am also almost sure that the above numbers are on the lower end of the spectrum as compared to the rest of the country….and I am not even talking about private schools here. There are ways to reduce this burden considerably, but that is a subject for another post.

Btw, when I joined grad school a few years ago, the annual expenses were in the range of $15,000~18,000…and have never stopped rising since then.

Some finer points: I have just mentioned the “nonresident” tuition in above numbers. “nonresident” meaning your hometown and your university are not in the same state. Most grads will choose schools according to their interests..(not just because it’s close to their home), so they may end up as nonresident students in other states. These nonresident numbers will also apply for international students….and there a lot of international graduate students in this country. For resident students, the annual tuition and fees expenses at our school are about $10,000 instead of $14,000. For undergrads, the numbers are slightly higher because most of them enroll for a lot more credit hours per semester than grad students.

Care to share what the cost of your education is (or was) ?