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College Tuition
How has the price changed?
Over the last 30 years — average tuition for both public and private four year colleges has essentially doubled after adjusting for inflation.
It really does feel like tuition is always rising. I found a New York Times article from 1970 noting that tuition at Harvard University for the coming year was going to jump – by $200 – from $2,400 a year to $2,600 (which would be about $21,000 today when adjusted for inflation).
Next year, the tuition at Harvard will be more than $59,000, though when you add in things like housing and food, that number price tag jumps to more than $86,000.
But many families aren't actually paying those high sticker prices. Instead, students get financial aid or merit aid, and end up paying a lower cost, called the net price.
Net price is still up when you compare with two decades ago, but in recent years the trend is more flat. Or, in some cases, falling. Data from the College Board's annual report tracking college prices shows that tuition for in-state students at public four-year colleges peaked in 2012, and has since declined.
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Judith Scott-Clayton, a professor of economics and education at Columbia University's Teachers College has been writing about the difference between those $100,000 price tags and what families really pay for more than two decades.
"College is expensive and no one is saying it's not a challenge," she says "But it's also important to acknowledge that it's not a hopeless case."
Why has the sticker price gone up so much?
There are many factors behind this. At public institutions, a big factor for many years was declining state funding; as legislatures reduced that funding, colleges were forced to raise tuition to make up for it. In recent years, though, state funding has rebounded somewhat.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw a huge drop in enrollment at colleges, so in some places that increase of state investment combined with fewer people going to college, meant more money per student.
There's also administrative bloat at some schools. And some experts blame student loans, though there is mixed research on this. Since 2007, the amount of student debt held by Americans has more than tripled, to roughly $1.6 trillion. As the ease of obtaining student loans increased, some researchers say, colleges absorbed that money in tuition increases.
Other experts point to rising costs, and competition: There are always new fancy buildings to build, and more staff to hire.
Also, having a high price tag dictates prestige. And there are wealthy families willing to pay those high prices: At Harvard — 40% of the incoming class pays full price — they don't get any financial help.
The actual costs are often murky.
Some families pay one thing, others pay another price. And no college seems to cost the same.
The market is opaque, and that's another reason tuition is high: Families often don't know until the end of the admission process how much these schools will cost them.
Which means, it's very hard to price shop, comparing one school's cost to another.
"That means colleges don't really compete on price with one another because students can't see the price up front," says Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. "They can't play different colleges' pricing offers against one another the way they could in a normal market."
Some solutions
There have been efforts – including in Congress – to standardize financial aid offer letters, to allow more comparison between colleges.
Another solution the Trump administration has touted is to freeze tuition.
One example of a university holding down costs by freezing tuition is Purdue University.
In 2013, Purdue locked undergraduate tuition at around $9,000 a year for in-state students, and $28,000 for out-of-state. The move brought a lot of skepticism at the time, but the freeze is still in place – more than a decade later.
"We've increased tuition revenue without raising prices," says Chris Ruhl, Purdue's chief financial officer and treasurer.
How? "By serving more students," he explains – both in-state students and out-of-state students from within the U.S. Also, "we've grown other revenue streams," he adds, "and then, we've been laser-focused on costs."
Ruhl points out that, historically, colleges set their budgets first, then set tuition at a level that would cover all the expenses. Purdue's freeze, he says, flips that model: They start with tuition and then adjust revenue goals and spending to meet what the university can afford.
There are very affordable options
One thing to note is that tuition varies widely, from college to college and from state to state.
In Florida, for example, the average tuition for in-state students is about $5,000 a year and that's remained constant for about 10 years.
And in many places, community colleges offer an affordable alternative, with the option to transfer later to a four year school. And, for low-income students, a Federal Pell Grant could end up making that tuition free, or nearly so.
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