Tuition hikes, fairness, dress codes, collections

Be ready to pay more for college this year. The average total cost of attending college in 1982-83 will rise again this fall by 11 percent for resident students, the College Board reported.

As reported by the board's College Scholarship Service, average total costs - including tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, transportation, and personal expenses - for resident students attending a four-year public college or university will run approximately $4,388 in 1882-83, up 13 percent from last year. The total costs for enrolling in a four-year private college or university will average about $7,475, up 11.1 percent from 1981-82.

Educational Testing Service (ETS) has opened its internal procedures to the scrutiny of an independent committee. The committee cautioned that some improvements should be made in testing procedures, but commended ETS on its effort to conduct fair tests and to be publicly open about activities in which the public is interested, even though it is a private organization.

The Department of Education is pulling out of the fashion business.

For the past few years the federal agency has had a provision on its books prohibiting schools from enforcing dress codes that specified wear according to sex.

Now the provision has been revoked because, says the department, it wants to ''concentrate its resources on cases involving more serious allegations of sex discrimination.''

Three senior citizens who work for Cornell University are taking the hassle out of what has long been a common problem for colleges and universities everywhere: collecting delinquent student tuition loans. The retirees work three evenings a week making calls to arrange for repayment.

Nationally the delinquency rate on student loans averages 10 percent. Cornell , with a 6 percent delinquency rate, falls well below that figure, but is still owed more than $1 million in outstanding student debts.