Paying For It

I was browsing the web some time ago and I decided to wander over to my alma mater's homepage. I graduated from Washington University in Saint Louis in 2002 (approximately 70 years after my grandmother graduated from the same school).

Anyway, I was curious about two things:

• how the school ranks (despite it's ranking, as you'll see below, when I was a senior in high school applying for universities, I had never heard of Wash. U, and especially not as a top-tier university);
  
• how much it costs to go there these days (I'm slowly chipping away at the remainder of my student loans, which I plan to have paid off by the end of this year at latest - September is the official goal barring the arising of unforeseen expenses).

Here's what I found:

"In U.S. News’ undergraduate category for 2008, Washington U. is ranked 12th among national universities." (link)

Educational costs, 2009—2010 (link)

Basic undergraduate tuition	$37,800
Student activity fee	$378
Student health fee	$686
Undergraduate room and board (average)	$12,060

Total cost: $50,924.

I guess they're doing all right in terms of rankings. And it seems they're doing even better in terms of ... raising funds (I jest).

I took a look at all this because of this years main financial goal - eliminating my student loans. Yes, by paying them off, not by faking a death or anything. It will be nice to be done with the only (and largest) debt of my life so far.