When a college student decides to go Greek, the cost of joining in addition to the fees due every semester can pile up. And for some students who pledge and are accepted, these financial obligations come as a surprise.
But recently, schools and organizations have made strides in being transparent about membership costs.
“The chapter I joined was very upfront about new member dues,” Azurrea Curry, a current member of Delta Gamma at the University of Mississippi, wrote in an email. “Before even visiting the houses on Philanthropy Round, each chapter had to share their new member and active member dues through Greek Day videos.”
There are nearly 600,000 members of fraternities and sororities in the U.S. and Canada, according to Cody Cramer, director of communication for the North American Interfraternity Conference. Membership fees for chapters vary across campuses, costing from a couple hundred dollars to thousands a semester. Costs are typically the highest for new members due to one-time pledging and initiation fees.
[Read: What to Know Before Joining Greek Life.]
“I am primarily responsible for paying my own dues, and am financially independent in school. Therefore, after the first day of videos during recruitment where each chapter had to display their dues, I made first cuts based on the amount of money new member dues would be,” Curry says.
Chapter Dues and Other Fees
Many organizations provide detailed information about chapter dues, national fees and financial obligations either during the recruitment process or online.
Aside from broader membership dues like national fees and charter fees, Greek life organizations include smaller fees that prospective members should be aware of. This fees include:
— Room and board
— Meal plans
— Social fees
The National Panhellenic Conference has worked with its 26 national women’s sororities in the U.S. and Canada to explicitly discuss financial obligations before and throughout recruitment. The organization requires sororities to be transparent about financial obligations for potential members before inviting them to join, according to Dani Weatherford, the group’s CEO.
“We know that finances, just like the other responsibilities of membership, are something potential new members and their caregivers need to know about prior to making a decision,” she says. “Because once you join, it is a lifelong commitment. We want those women to understand both the privileges of being a member and the responsibilities to membership.”
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Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, where about 26% of undergraduate women and 19% of undergrad men participate in Greek life, publishes an average cost breakdown of its fraternities and sororities.
For the 2022-2023 school year, the least amount a Lehigh student would have to pay as a new member of a sorority was $660 per semester for Kappa Alpha Theta, compared with the highest amount — $1,512.50 — for Alpha Phi.
For joining a fraternity at Lehigh, the cost for a new member ranged from $206 at Sigma Phi Epsilon to $1,400 at Delta Upsilon per semester for 2022-2023. Among its Cultural Greek Council, which consists of culturally based fraternities and sororities, new membership fees per semester ranged from $450 at Phi Sigma Chi to $1,200 at Sigma Gamma Rho.
Costs Can Vary Widely
However, websites vary in the information they provide. Some give average costs for students that include chapter dues, housing and meal plans. Other schools provide an itemized list of expenses.
“The sorority experience is not a one-size-fits-all experience from campus to campus,” Weatherford says. “On some campuses, the community is quite large and the chapter might have more than 300 women in it, while others might have 25 women. On one campus, there may be housing, and that is completely separate from something like a dues structure. But then on another campus, the women in a particular chapter might live together on a dorm floor that is owned by the university.”
At the University of Alabama, where some sorority houses have been featured in Southern Living magazine, the highest price for a member not living in the chapter house — who is not a new member or first year — for 2022-2023 was nearly $5,000 per semester, including a meal plan and local and national chapter fees. Living in the house can cost as much as about $9,400 per semester, and includes room as well as a meal plan and local chapter and national fees. (Both amounts do not include one-time pledging fees.)
For members who don’t live in the house, chapter fees may include parlor fees — which generally cover the maintenance of common areas in the chapter house — dues to the local and national chapter, social fees and other charges.
Experts say that for the most part, fraternities and sororities on the same campus tend to have similar chapter fee costs.
However, chapter fee costs can differ among college campuses. For example, Kappa Alpha’s initiated chapter fee is $2,600 at Louisiana State University and $2,800 at Washington & Lee University in Virginia.
Many colleges also recognize multicultural fraternities and sororities, which bring together students of similar backgrounds and identities, and those fees vary as well. For example, Alpha Psi Lambda, a Latino fraternity at Miami University of Ohio, charges a new member fee of $285 and an active member fee of $170. Those fees are $80 and $150, respectively, for alpha Kappa Delta Phi, an Asian-interest sorority at Syracuse University in New York.
People interested in joining a sorority or fraternity should refer to their school’s Greek affairs website for information on costs.
Financial Aid for Greek Life
Academic, need-based and emergency fund scholarships are available for students looking to join Greek organizations in many places. For example, 26 sororities gave $6.6 million in scholarships in the 2022-2023 school year, according to Weatherford.
[READ: Why International Students May Want to Consider Greek Life.]
Jason Bergeron, executive director of the Association of Fraternity and Sorority Advisors, which represents university professionals who oversee Greek life on more than 700 campuses across the U.S., has seen a recent uptick in sororities and fraternities addressing affordability.
“Many fraternities and sororities are really tackling issues of generational privilege, affordability and access for low-income students and inclusion at all levels,” he says. “Part of that is conversations about affordability and how do we provide access to folks at all socioeconomic levels who are coming to college?”
For prospective students and families interested in learning more about the cost of participating in Greek life, experts recommend contacting the fraternity and sorority advising office on campus.
“Each individual council or chapter can provide that information,” Joe Wheeless, director of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life at Virginia Commonwealth University, wrote in an email. “Additionally, each organization provides that information to interested students during the recruitment process.”
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Joining a Sorority or Fraternity Comes With a Cost originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 09/22/23: This story was previously published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
