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College Costs Continue to Increase
By Gwendolyn Bradley
The rate of increases in published costs for public institutions is up, federal grant funding to undergraduates is down, and borrowing from private sources continues to increase, according to a pair of annual studies released in October by the College Board. Trends in College Pricing 2007 covers 2007–08; Trends in Student Aid 2007 covers 2006–07, the most recent year for which data on student aid are available.
For 2007–08, public four-year institutions saw an increase of 6.6 percent for in-state and 5.5 percent for out-of-state tuition and fees over the previous year, while public two year institutions averaged a 4.2 percent increase. At private four-year nonprofit institutions, tuition and fees rose by 6.3 percent. Average figures conceal wide variations, the report says; for example, about one-fifth of full-time undergraduate students at public four-year colleges experienced less than a 3 percent increase in 2007–08, while one-fifth experienced an increase of 9 percent or more.
Enrollment at for-profit colleges has risen over time, the report says, from 2 percent of full-time students in 1995 to 8 percent in 2005. The largest shift of students into the for profit sector came from public four year institutions.
In 2006–07, about three-quarters of full-time undergraduates received some form of financial aid. The average Pell Grant failed for the fourth year in a row to keep pace with inflation. The percentage of the average published cost of tuition, fees, and room and board that Pell Grants cover has dropped from about 52 percent at a public four-year institution in 1986–87 to 32 percent in 2006–07. Federal loans to undergraduates also failed to keep up with inflation. Private loans made up 24 percent of total education loans in 2006–07, up from 6 percent a decade ago.
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