I'm pretty sure that the band R.E.M. wasn't thinking about the economy when it sang its hit single "Everybody Hurts," but those two words perfectly capture the effects of the current recession. R.E.M. sang about how everybody hurts sometimes.These days, the hurting seems to be affecting almost everybody at the same time. With investments and endowments following similar trajectories, universities and families-particularly those families sending their children to universities-across the country are experiencing parallel uncertainty. Universities-especially those whose core mission involves social justice and equality, such as our own-should be mindful of this when considering ways to increase much needed revenue.

Filling Brandeis' burgeoning budget gap may necessitate an increase in tuition, but if the school is to continue to tout its core values to its prospective students, it should seriously consider a four-year, fixed-rate tuition plan like that of George Washington University.

The inevitable tuition increase is nothing new or unreasonable. According to a March 21 article in The New York Times, just 30 years ago the average cost of a semester of a private school university education was $4,200. Compare that to today's average of $29,900. (Both figures include room and board.) With rising inflation and operational budgets, gradual increases are expected. Fine and fair.

Today, as Brandeis finds its endowment in a free fall, the tuition increase of 3.9 percent seems to make sense. Even considering how most families are as anxious-or perhaps even more anxious than the Board of Trustees-the tuition increase is somewhat reasonable because, presumably, these families know how profoundly paying for tuition will affect their budgets. However, it is unfair and misleading when these increases affect the tuition of students already enrolled at Brandeis, as there is no way to figure out and prepare for exactly how much the bottom line of our education will cost.

The cost of a Brandeis education ranks among the most expensive colleges in the United States. As one of many students whose family's economic bracket is found in between the financial aid system's cracks (too high to qualify for aid but low enough that paying for college has a significant effect on economic comfort and lifestyle choices), saving for this fee began shortly after my exit from the womb. I, like many other students here, chose the exceptional, but expensive, liberal arts education offered at Brandeis over many other public institutions and schools that offered me nice merit-based scholarships. Families that aren't of excessive means need to plan how to foot the bill for schools like Brandeis.

Now Brandeis does seem to offer a way of helping families guarantee that the consistency of tuition, but it is bizarre and seemingly unpublicized. The Brandeis University Tuition Stabilization Plan allows families to pay from a minimum of two years of tuition ($72,244, according to the BTSP 2008-2009 fact sheet) to a maximum of four years ($144,488) up-front to avoid having to deal with increases. Because most of the families that would benefit from this plan don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars at their disposal, the BTSP is relatively ineffective.

GW, which is ranked as the most expensive university in the country-but costs only $2,709 more than Brandeis including room and board, according to information posted on the College Board Web site-understands this fact and promises students and their families that their tuition rate will stay constant for the duration of their four years at the school. GW's policy, or a policy that closely resembles it, is the only way for a school to justify such an enormous price tag.

Despite the fact that Brandeis is only wearing darkly tinted sunglasses when considering need for financial aid (it is not need-blind for wait-listed and international students, as a recent New York Times article has pointed out), 48 percent of the school is on some sort of financial package, and many of these packages are quite substantial. This percentage reflects the school's core values and is something to be proud of. In order to maintain its integrity in these trying times, Brandeis must employ equally honorable practices in its policies towards full-tuition-paying students. It can start by making sure that the total amount spent on college doesn't come as a surprise by the time families have paid tuition costs in full.