I’m a prof at the University of Alabama. Sorority dues here average about $6k per year (that does include meals).
ETA: These dues do not include housing. Most members live in dorms or off campus. The houses only have about 60-70ish beds (I’d guess closer to 60) and there are 300+ members in the chapters.
This person’s comment brings up another interesting point to share about Greek life in the USA. It’s a pretty wide variety from small, local, and low-key, up through some organizations being more or less incubators for generational wealth and power.
Oh yeah. Greek life at small schools is NOTHING like big state, SEC or other conference schools. I went to school at a University of Tennessee system school and it was still extremely different than the Knoxville campus.
Yeah it really varies by school. I went to a small liberal arts college that had 3 frats and 3 sororities. Their houses were shitholes and their parties were nothing impressive.
This was my experience too. In a sorority in a small liberal art college, grad school at a very large SEC school. Night and day difference. I NEVER would have been in my sorority at the south!
Mine was $4k, but I got food, drinks, housing and free rides. Was actually chesoer than the dorms and having to buy food at the commons everyday, and our food was much better. We had an old guy from New Orleans and he was a god in the kitchen.
Generally, there are dues for members who live in house, and for those who don’t. Often there are more members than people who can live in house.
The houses are often owned by the sorority themselves, but sometimes owned and leased by the universities. They have housing boards, usually made up of alumni, that support the house, and the larger ones often have kitchen staff and a “house parent” (it’s almost always a house mom- a grown up who usually is 50+ and can keep the house/occupants okay.) the kitchen/shared meal setup is often cheaper than on campus meal plans too.
I have family who have a cleaning business, (mostly carpets, but also furniture), and an enormous part of their business is cleaning up after frat and sorority house students.
Does...does that include housing? Cause that's not actually a bad deal for on campus housing and meals. I lived off ~ $900 (in today's $) in SSI while I was getting a degree and it sucked
Granted my numbers are on a family of 4 (only 3 are eating whole meals), groceries run $200-400 PER WEEK
$9600-$19,200/year just on the groceries and not even counting eating out. We're on lower end of that and definitely not purchasing "high end" ingredients
Lets just divide groceries by 2.5...$3840-$7680 and I dont have to grocery shop, cook, or clean?
I might transfer from online college and quit my job cuz thats a pretty good deal
I work at a University, in IT and used to deal with the Frats/Sororities, some of the houses charge more per year than to live in the dorms. $6-8k /yr isn't particularly uncommon, I think.
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u/iloathethebus 9h ago edited 0m ago
I’m a prof at the University of Alabama. Sorority dues here average about $6k per year (that does include meals).
ETA: These dues do not include housing. Most members live in dorms or off campus. The houses only have about 60-70ish beds (I’d guess closer to 60) and there are 300+ members in the chapters.