The Cost of Living in New York | Motohiro Tsuchiya, Vice-President / Professor, Graduate School of Media and Governance
November 29, 2022
The first time I went to New York was when I was a graduate student. After finishing my first academic presentation in English in Washington, D.C., two SFC alumni who happened to be at the venue approached me. I recall they were both doing something like an internship in Washington, D.C. When I mentioned I was heading to New York afterward, they recommended a xiao long bao restaurant in New York's Chinatown.
Eight large xiao long bao are served in a bamboo steamer. Piping hot soup bursts out of the large dumplings, which overflow from a soup spoon. Whenever I'm in New York and can't decide where to eat, I always make it a point to go there.
Last month, before visiting Keio Academy of New York for the first time in seven months, I stopped by the Consulate General of Japan in Manhattan. I paid my respects to the Consul General, an old acquaintance, and asked for his continued support for the Academy. After leaving, I wondered what to do for lunch and decided to go for xiao long bao again. A quick search on my smartphone revealed that the restaurant had apparently relocated. However, it looked like I could get there on a single subway line. A single-ride ticket cost a full $3. The exchange rate had just surpassed 150 yen to the dollar. I sighed at the thought of paying 450 yen for just a 10-minute subway ride.
The relocated restaurant was now much nicer. I ordered a Tsingtao beer, xiao long bao, and Shanghai fried rice. In the past, the xiao long bao were served on a bed of Chinese cabbage, but now they use paper liners. The flavor, it seemed, had not diminished. Although it was a bit early for lunch, the restaurant was quickly filling up.
I ate until I was stuffed, perhaps a bit too much, and asked for the check. The total was just under $40, including an 18 percent service charge. I had intended it to be a casual lunch for one, but it amounted to 6,000 yen. For that price in Tokyo, you could probably enjoy an elaborate Chinese lunch course. This wasn't just due to the weak yen. Even at 100 yen to the dollar, it would have been 4,000 yen. It was a stark reminder of what inflation really means.
In New York City, the shadow of COVID-19 has all but disappeared. In Chinatown, many people were still wearing masks. In restaurants, some employees wear them, but they were a rare sight elsewhere. The PCR testing booths, a common sight a year ago, have mostly vanished. Tourists have returned to the city, and I hear that tickets for musicals are almost completely sold out. By this point, the number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. had surpassed 1.09 million. It makes you wonder what the last two and a half years were for.
However, I've heard that offices are largely empty. Apparently, about 40% of people are teleworking, which they consider a right earned by employees during the pandemic. In some extreme cases, the only person who comes into the office every day is said to be the CEO.
I wonder if students will return to university campuses. While classes are being held in person, some universities reportedly still require masks to be worn in the classroom.
Curious, I looked up the tuition at Columbia University , a representative university in New York. To my surprise, tuition alone is over $65,000. When you include room, board, and other fees, the total cost approaches $86,000. At 150 yen to the dollar, that's 12.9 million yen for the first year. SFC students often complain that their tuition is expensive. It is certainly high compared to the humanities faculties at the Mita Campus. However, it is only about one-tenth of the cost of Columbia. Even if the exchange rate were to return to 100 yen to the dollar, a huge gap would remain.
While it's often said that U.S. universities have robust scholarship programs and that few students pay the full sticker price, Japanese universities as a whole are a bargain by comparison. National universities are even more affordable than private ones. I dislike saying this, but I must admit that Japan has been left behind over the past 30 years. While we have stagnated, the rest of the world has continued to grow.
As the person at Keio University in charge of international affairs, if I were to find one silver lining, it's that more international students might be drawn to the comparatively inexpensive Keio University. But for that to happen, we must be sufficiently attractive. We won't be chosen if we are perceived as "cheap and shoddy." What would happen to Keio University, and to Japanese universities in general, if we raised our tuition to U.S. levels? We must strive to provide education and research that would make people say, "It's expensive, but it's worth it." Musing on such things, I walked back to my hotel, my face flushed from the Tsingtao beer.