In my newsletter the other day, I mentioned something about my experiences with University Book and Supply at the University of Northern Iowa – how they’d rip me off every single semester and I had no choice but to deal with it. George Spink had slightly different experiences:

I can’t even imagine paying for textbooks today, let alone going to college. My father died in January 1957, and my mother worked to support us. When it came time for me to go to college in September 1958, I was pretty much on my own. Fortunately, I had saved money throughout high school by working part-time jobs.

I did my undergraduate work in political science between 1958 and 1963, working a year between my sophomore and junior year so I could save money to transfer from UCSB to Northwestern University. I remember books cost me about $30-$45 per quarter at UCSB.
Because I was from Illinois, I paid out-of-state tuition to go to UCSB, a few hundred dollars a year. Northwestern’s tuition in 1961-1963 was much higher, $1,200 per year. I paid $400 for my first quarter and then received full-tuition scholarships for the remaining quarters I attended Northwestern. I used the money I had saved while working in 1960-1961, about $3,000, for my living expenses.

I did a year of graduate work at Stanford between 1963 and 1964. It’s tuition was somewhat higher than Northwestern’s, $1,800 per year. Books ran about $45 to $60 per quarter at both schools. I always bought new books.

In the mid-1970s, I earned an M.B.A. with a specialization in finance from the University of Chicago. Tuition was $400 per quarter, or $3,600 per year. Books were about $100-$150 per quarter.

It is hard for me to believe that more than 30 years have passed since I earned my M.B.A in June 1976. Fortunately, I was always good in math and took almost enough classes as an undergraduate to major in it, but politics was my main interest during the Kennedy years. My math background helped me immensely at Chicago, because I specialized in finance, taking eight out of my 20 MBA courses in finance. The Chicago approach to finance was highly mathematical.

The University of Chicago was my idea of what graduate school should be like. I think about 75 percent of its students were graduate students, and I think that is about the same percentage today. Nerds was not a widely used term in the early 1970s, when I was a 30-something student there. But many U. of C. students would have been called that and would have been proud of it. They really wouldn’t have cared. The highpoint of every other year was always the Lascivious Costume Ball, where students wore anything they wanted. Several coeds usually showed up wearing peanut butter and nothing else.

After I received my M.B.A. in June 1976, I remained working at the University for three years. It was a great place to work. In 1979, I eventually succumbed to the lure of higher salaries in the private sector. I wish I would have remained at the University of Chicago.

What I remember most about the University of Chicago Bookstore had nothing at all to do with books. There was a small area of the store where you could order class rings, other school memorabilia, and have photos developed. On the wall behind the camera counter was a large portrait of Cybill Shepherd. She was in her 20s when the photo was taken and absolutely beautiful.

Looking back, I’m very glad I went to college – if only for the experiences and exposure. Higher institutions of learning will certainly be around for a while, although I must admit that I’ve learned more in life from “the Internet” than I ever did in the classroom.

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