MovieChat Forums > Good Will Hunting (1998) Discussion > Harvard Tuition and Inflation

Harvard Tuition and Inflation

posted 4 years ago by spacecomedy (2046)
2 replies | jump to latest

This movie came out 23 years ago. In the classic bar scene Will says to Clark: "In about 50 years you’re gonna start doin' some thinkin' on your own and you’re gonna come up with the fact that...you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin’ education you coulda' got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library."

Currently, four years at Harvard (tuition, room, board, and fees) totals about $300K. So for the past 23 years tuition has gone up about 3% a year, so while it's still incredibly expensive it's only increased at the standard rate of inflation. Of course, as Will would probably point out $1.50 in late fees in 1997 equals about $3.00 in 2020...so he still got the better deal.

Food in Films: The fellas know that America (and Massachusetts especially) runs on Dunkin'. And I don't know what hamburger stand Will and Skylar were at, but those burgers looked freakin' fantastic.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

That's four years, tho. Michael Bolton was a graduate student. So I'm guessing they're basing it on six. Tuition (fees, etc) to Harvard in 1997 was about 29k a year. Currently they're about 84k a year. Either way Will's math is a bit off. Some prodigy he is, eh?

[–] spacecomedy (2046) 4 years ago

Interesting. I assumed they'd used the correct tuition for the time period and worked out Will's math properly. Guess it's a good thing he followed Skylar. ;)

So if we used your tuition figures for four years...1997 tuition $29K/year x 4 yrs=$116K. 2020 tuition $84K/year x 4 years =$336K. Works out to about 4.7% inflation/year...which is higher than average.