Dues

[FuzzieAlum]

One more thing to keep in mind ... well, two, really.

Dorm/house costs are usually equivalent. Some sororities include room/board under "dues" and others break it out. Make sure you know how the sororities on your campus do it (they'll be pretty consistent on one campus).

Also, some chapters include more in their dues than others. For example, my dues were around $150/semester, if I remember right. However, this didn't include mandatory rush t-shirts, formal, date party, etc. You're going to end up paying for most of those no matter what, which will bring your total expenditure up considerably. Find out if those are included in the dues.

Still, even if every chapter calculated dues in the same way (aka, room and board not included, all required events and the big dances included), they would vary wildly from campus to campus. And the higher the dues go, there are people who can't afford it. Yeah, people say, "I worked to pay my dues," but some people have to work part-time during the school year and full-time during the summer just to cover the cost of the education, period. On the other hand, if your dues are higher, you're getting more (materially, at least).