Tuition and Fees from the Concordia College Record

Tuition Statement 1960-1961

            As students, we pay for the education that we receive. Tuition is essential for all institutions: it funds faculty and staff salaries and also assists in the upkeep costs so colleges can continue proving a comfortable learning environment. Even from the very beginning of its existence, Concordia College has put a price to the educational benefits that it is providing to its students.

(1) According to Concordia College Record Catalog, Volume 64 Number 7, the tuition of Concordia in 1960-61 per semester was 325 dollars. At that time, Concordia had one of the highest tuitions in the state of Minnesota. (2) When reading On Firm Foundation Grounded, a book written about the first century history of Concordia College, we see that there is a reason behind the heightened cost of tuition. Engelhardt states in his book that during the postwar boom, the government had decided that state schools needed to expand, this decreased the 50 percent of students who attended private institutions at that time down to 40 percent.

When doing research into various tuitions at this time I was able to find some shocking numbers. (3) In the same year of 1960, Moorhead State University switched to a tuition system where students paid a set amount for each credit they took in the given semester. Moorhead State's official website said that the cost of one credit for an in state resident was $3.50, and then stated that an average amount of credit per quarter was 16, equaling $112 for one full semester. (4) The University of Minnesota twin cities campus charged 213 dollars per semester, meaning Concordia charged almost double to three times as much as its competitors.

With such a vast difference in tuition, it’s hard to imagine why students in 1960 and even today would attend Concordia. (2) Students who enrolled in Concordia are predominantly Norwegian Lutherans that come from small town and farming areas. The values that Concordia students hold stick out. Students attend Concordia to become well rounded. As a liberal arts college, Concordia doesn’t just prepare its students for the workforce. Concordia prepares its students for life.

      (1) Concordia College, "Concordia Finances," Concordia College Record, 64, no. 7: 26,

      (2) Carroll Engelhardt, On Firm Foundation Grounded: First Century of Concordia College (Moorhead: Concordia College, 1991).

      (3) Minnesota State University Moorhead, "1960s: The Winds of Change,"  accessed December 8, 2013, http://web.mnstate.edu/shoptaug/125th/125th/1960s/1960spage.htm.

     (4) University of Minnesota: Office of institutional research, "University of Minnesota Annual Tuition Rates: 1960 to 2014,"  accessed December 8, http://www.oir.umn.edu/static/tuition/TuitionUMNTC.pdf.

Essay by Trevor Lofstedt