Shakedown U

Time was, we all feared tax season. But these days, April’s got nothing on August. That’s when a collector even more insatiable than the IRS comes knocking: Boston College. Yes, first-semester tuition for BC is due on the 10th of this month, and the bill is a record-high whopper. Including fees and room and board, studying at BC now costs $54,528 a year, making it the most expensive education in town — but not by much. The school’s 3.6 percent fee hike was just enough to push it past Tufts by $54. BU ($54,130), Harvard ($52,560), and MIT ($52,507) were also right there. Fall-term payments for those schools are all due this month, too.

“Excellence in higher education is an expensive proposition, particularly in the Northeast, where energy and labor costs are the highest in the nation,” says BC spokesman Jack Dunn. “We are committed to doing everything we can to limit tuition increases,” he adds. In the meantime, if you see people wandering around Chestnut Hill with a hangdog look and their head down, take pity — they probably just wrote a huge check. Either that or they’re searching for spare change.