Tuition and fees at four-year U.S. public universities rose an average 14 percent in the past year as state governments froze funding and schools increased prices to make up for higher costs, according to a survey.
Tuition and fees at four-year private colleges rose only 6
percent in the 2003-2004 school year to $19,710. That’s almost
five times the cost of public schools, according to the yearly
survey by the College Board, a nonprofit education association
based in Washington.
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State university funding, which increased by more than 5
percent a year in the 1990s, was frozen in 2001-2002, the most
recent year data was available, according to the report. Public
schools depend on state governments for more than a third of
their budgets, the board said.
“We have to look at other sources of revenue and tuition is
one of those,” said Linda Clement, vice president for student
affairs at the University of Maryland in College Park.
Annual public school tuition in the country has risen 47
percent to $4,115 in the past decade, the report said. It surged
in the early 1990s after cuts in state funding. Private-school
tuition has risen 42 percent during the same period, while the
consumer price index in the United States has climbed 28 percent.
There are about 13.2 million people in U.S. colleges and 68
percent go to schools with yearly tuition of less than $8,000.
Fourteen percent are at schools where tuition tops $20,000.
College tuition costs began increasing in the 1980s after
remaining relatively stable for years, driven by higher faculty
salaries, health care and technology costs and booming
enrollments.
“It is more expensive to educate a broader population,”
said Sandy Baum, an economics professor at Skidmore College and
one of the authors of the College Board report. Skidmore is based
in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
The price of college remains prohibitive for the poorest
families. One year of tuition at a public four-year school
represented 71 percent of the annual income for the poorest
quarter of families in the U.S., up from 40 percent 25 years ago.
Private school tuition costs had risen to 180 percent of income.
“There is a deeply disturbing gap between upper-middle
income students and lower-income students,” College Board
President Gaston Caperton said.
For the wealthiest quarter of families, college costs have
remained generally unchanged, below 10 percent of yearly income
for public schools and about 20 percent for private schools.
Student aid rose 15 percent last year to $105 billion from
$91 billion the year before. Most went to lower-income students,
though an increasing share was used to lure the most attractive
students.
“There is a market for education,” Baum said.
College costs varied widely across the country, the report
showed. Tuitions were highest in Mid-Atlantic and New England and
lowest, by as much as half, in the South and West. Tuition was
also rising fastest in the cheapest regions of the country.
For the first time, the College Board examined the price the
average student actually paid for college after receiving grant
aid. The net cost was less than half of the published tuition at
four-year public schools. Net student costs were 40 percent lower
at private schools.
More than $40 billion of grant aid was distributed in 2002-2003, averaging $4,300 for each public-school student and $7,300 for each private school student.
Bloomberg News
