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College Costs Continue to Rise, Studies Show
Both tuition and financial-aid awards are rising, according to recent studies, but the financial aid is not always going to the neediest students.
Tuition increases are an alternate source of revenue for public institutions facing a drastic loss of state funding as a result of continuing budget crises. According to a 2002 report from the National Center on Public Policy and Education, tuition at four-year public colleges and universities increased in all fifty states between the 2001-02 and 2002-03 academic years, with jumps ranging from 2 to 24 percent.
Financial aid packages offered by public colleges and universities have also risen, according to a 2003 report issued by the U.S. Department of Education. The report, What Colleges Contribute, finds that while the amount of money offered by colleges to under-graduate students rose between 1992-93 and 1999-2000, the most notable in-crease was in the percentage of aid offered to undergraduates from the highest income quartile. The report states that the percentage of high-income students at public colleges and universities receiving aid increased from 13 to 18 percent over the past eight years, but no comparable increase in aid was given to students in the lowest quartiles. Prohibitive costs now threaten to deny low-income students access to an education at four-year institutions of higher learning.
"If the state budget crises are resolved by higher tuitions and by shifting the burden to students, their families, and employees at institutions of higher education, our country will suffer a terrible blow to our democracy and to our structure of opportunity," comments Gerald Turkel, professor of sociology and legal studies at the University of Delaware and chair of the Association's Commit-tee on Government Relations.
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