And welcome back to another edition of, “Is it really worth $220,000?” This week, I wanted to look at another offender: resident advisors.
Follow with me while I do some FroSci back of the envelope calculations.
There are 5776 students in SEAS and CC, and if we assume 99% of them live on campus, that makes 5718.24 residents (we can count NFL offensive line prospect Jeff Adams as the extra quarter of a person.)
Divide that by the 119 RAs that WikiCU lists as being staffed, and you get a ratio of one RA to every 48 residents.
Let’s assume the average room and board to be $7,750 a year. Knowing that RAs get free housing, that comes out to a cost of $161 per student for each RA. Throw in the free dining meals that freshmen and LLC RAs get, the small payment they receive, and the funding it takes for Student Affairs to train them, and the cost easily exceeds $200 a pop.
