What Does Affordable Mean?

I tell friends Snow College offers a nationally ranked education with exceptional graduation and transfer rates. And that it is very affordable! But what does affordable mean? Take a look at this chart. Snow College’s tuition and fees total $1,543 per semester. Add housing costs in Ephraim, which runs from $750 to $1,250 per semester. And keep in the back of your mind that most students at Snow College—do not have a car—they do not need a car to drive back and forth to school, part-time job and church because they can walk everywhere they need to go.

Ok, let’s put the savings aside that students bank for not having to pay for, maintain, insure and fill a car with gas and just look at tuition, fees and housing. The total cost for tuition, fees and housing at Snow College ranges from $2,293 to $2,793 per semester.

The bottom line: A student can attend nationally ranked Snow College—as a resident student—enjoying all the benefits of the full college experience, for less money than it will cost her to live in her parents’ basement and commute to any university in Utah.

In this economy we are all concerned about getting the best value for our dollar. Snow College offers the chance for students to enjoy the benefits of the full, residential college experience during the freshman and sophomore years and then transfer to a university for the last two years, all for less money.

Snow College has the Ideal Learning Environment

Let me begin with three facts.

1.  90% of the students attending Snow College in Ephraim live within close walking distance of campus.

2.  More than half of the faculty members live within walking distance of the campus.

3.  Snow College is set in a community with few distractions and where life for college students centers on the 50-acre college campus.

This combination of resident faculty and students in a community focused on the College leads to more student interactions with faculty members and an increase in co-curricular and extra-curricular activity. No other college or university in Utah has such an ideal learning environment.

Research supports the fact that residential students are more engaged in effective educational practices then commuter students. Kuth, Gonyea and Palmer, Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research and Planning, conducted one such survey of student engagement. They found, “residential students were more engaged in effective educational practices and—in all likelihood—were benefiting more from their college experience.” In particular, the study found that residential students have more interaction with faculty members and are more likely to take advantage of co-curricular activities, field trips and community service.

Jing Wang and Jonathan Shiveley from the Office of Institutional Research at California State University, Sacramento found that “students achieved much higher rates of retention and graduation, maintained better GPAs, and had higher good standing rates when they engaged in any [extra-curricular] activities.”

So there you have it. One of the reasons why Snow College students excel and have much higher graduation rates that its peers is because of the unique, residential learning environment.