Public college tuition and fees increased an average of 10 percent for the current academic year, the College Board announced in October. While the Consumer Price Index rose only 1.5 percent during the period ending Sept. 30, 2002, no one is suggesting that tuition hikes are related to inflation. State budgets have been awash in red ink for more than a year. In most cases, states are responding by pulling back support for public higher education and relying on families and various aid sources to fill the hole.

According to the College Board:

• At four-year public institutions, tuition and fees average $4,081. This is a 9.6 percent increase--or $356 more than last year's average.

• For private four-years, tuition and fees average $18,273, a 5.8 percent increase over last year's $17,272.

• Tuition and fees at two-year public colleges averaged $1,735, a 7.9 percent increase over last year's $1,608.

• Private two-year college tuition went up 7.5 percent from an average of $9,200 to $9,890.

In another report released at the same time as the tuition survey, the College Board announced that $90 billion was available in student financial aid in 2001-02--a record. Total aid during the past decade has increased by 117 percent in constant dollars.

Trends in how the aid is awarded are an ongoing concern, as federal policy has caused a shift in aid from grants (which mostly benefit students in need) to loans (which are most helpful to the middle- and upper-income families). For example, in 1991-92, loans accounted for 47 percent of aid, and grants accounted for 50 percent. A decade later, loans accounted for 54 percent of aid, and grants accounted for 39 percent.

Despite adjustments to the Pell grant program, the maximum grant covers only 42 percent of the tuition, fees, and room and board of average four-year public colleges. Twenty years ago, says the College Board, the maximum covered 84 percent.

Large tuition increases are being made nationwide as states cut back on their funding, just as they did during recessions in the early 1980s, and again in the early 1990s. Lately, however, tuition has not been going up as fast as state appropriations have been going down, says Tom Mortenson, a higher education policy analyst who studies the effect of funding on students' opportunity to attend college. "Some of us think this is somewhat like shooting yourself in the head.

"For the second half of the 1990s," he explains, "higher education has represented a shrinking share of the gross national product. At a time when higher education is seen as more important than ever before, to see it being cut back is dumbfounding." [Barbara McKenna / AFT On Campus]

[December 26, 2002]