As college tuition increases slow, students take on less debt

The past year’s published increase in tuition and fees across all kinds of US colleges and universities rose at a slower rate than the average for the past five, 10 and 30 years. And today’s students are going into less debt to pursue their degrees.

|
Nick Tomecek/Northwest Florida Daily/AP/File
A graduate of Northwest Florida State College wears her cap during commencement in Niceville, Fla. College tuition is rising at a slower rate than in the past, according to a recent report.

The past year’s published increase in tuition and fees across all kinds of U.S. colleges and universities rose at a slower rate than the average for the past five, 10 and 30 years. And today’s students are going into less debt to pursue their degrees.

Those are the key findings of a report released late last week by the College Board.

The College Board is a private association that includes more than 6,000 colleges, universities and schools. It creates and administers standardized tests, including the SATs, and provides services and support to students and their parents as they consider college.

The rate of tuition increase has declined in each of the past three years, according to the College Board.

Students also are borrowing less money for college, the report said, in part due to the federal government increasing Pell Grants, tuition help for veterans and other assistance.

The report says a rebound from the economic downturn of the past few years was a factor. In contrast to the private sector, higher education costs tend to increase during tough economic times, as out-of-work adults seek new degrees and students who could opt to enter the job market choose to stay in school instead.

But even if recent trends are promising, a longer look at college costs shows that paying for higher educationremains daunting for many families. While increases are slowing, they continue to climb higher than the rate of inflation.

Over the past decade, the average published tuition and fees at public, four-year schools have risen a whopping 42%, adjusted for inflation, according to the College Board.

“It is encouraging that published prices are rising more slowly than in the past and that annual education borrowing has continued to decline,” Sandy Baum, the report’s co-author and a professor of education policy at George Washington University, said in a written release.

“However, the reports also document dramatic increases in published tuition and fees over time that outstrip growth in grant aid for many students, as well as rising levels of cumulative debt among graduates.”

And, as the Chronicle of Higher Education notes, those figures don’t take into account other costs, like rent and groceries, which continue to rise.

According to the Chronicle, average room and board charges for four-year students now amount to more than $9,800.

Between the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years, tuition and fees for full-time, in-state students at public four-year colleges and universities increased 2.9%, from $8,885 to $9,139.

The cost for out-of-state students at those schools rose 3.3%, from $22,223 to $22,958 during the same period, and tuition and fees at private, nonprofit four-year institutions jumped 3.7%, from $30,131 to $31,231.

Tuition and fees at public two-year schools also went up 3.3% on average, from $3,241 to $3,347.

Actual net prices tend to be much lower than published prices, the Board said, because many students receive grants from state and federal governments, or from the colleges and universities themselves. Education tax credits and deductions also help chip away at those numbers.

College graduate and debt illustration via Shutterstock.

The post College Tuition Increases Slow Down; Students Take On Less Debt appeared first on NerdWallet News.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to As college tuition increases slow, students take on less debt
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/new-economy/2014/1119/As-college-tuition-increases-slow-students-take-on-less-debt
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe