The University located four blocks away from the White House with amazing internship opportunities and professors from a host of top government agencies is now almost solely known for something else – its $50,000 price tag.

Following the Board of Trustees approval of a fixed tuition of $39,210 per year for the class of 2011, numerous news sources reported that GW students would have to pay more than $50,000 with room and board included. The University’s press release on the tuition hike attempted to obfuscate the price by pointing to a reduction of percentage increases under the fixed tuition policy and increased financial aid. Administrators must be honest and stop hiding the University’s high tuition and begin dealing with the issues that come along with being No. 1 in such a negative ranking.

Perhaps the University’s largest focus in its efforts to mask the significance of GW’s deals with fixed tuition. Administrators tout that this program, first instituted for the class of 2008, offsets the high cost of tuition by keeping costs to GW students constant as other universities hike costs. Calculations by The Hatchet last semester, however, show that even with a constant fee structure, GW is more expensive than schools in its market basket (“Fixed-tuition assurance does not add up,” Nov. 6, p. 4).

The University press release also focuses on a 4.7 percent increase in financial aid for students, compared to last year. Unfortunately, this fact is of little help to prospective students, who are unsure as to whether they will receive any aid and must be prepared to foot the entire bill without help from the University.

Administrators have also touted the fact that this year’s tuition hike is the lowest in nearly two decades. But this statistic hides the fact that tuition is still rising, and that small percentage changes make little difference at such high costs – especially compared with other schools.

Rather than hiding behind numerical tricks, GW officials should come clean about our position at the apex of costliest colleges in America. By distorting the reality of high tuition, administrators leave little room to examine how to mitigate GW’s high costs and focus on reducing tuition, rather than reducing the tuition increase.

If tuition becomes high enough, student application rates may plummet and administrators will have to deal with high tuition. Until then, if GW continues to confuse the real issues behind University cost estimates, we will be known for little more than our price tag.