Thursday, November 20, 2014

Tuition and Borrowing Growth Slows - Kaitlin Mulhere, Inside Higher Ed

But while the rate of price increases is slowing, the accumulation is still formidable, as Sandy Baum, one of the report’s authors, points out. For public four-year colleges, the published tuition and fee prices are 3.25 times higher than they were 30 years ago. At public two year-year and private four-year colleges, the prices are 2.5 times higher. Published price increases vary by degree type. At public universities, tuition for students earning a bachelor’s degree has increased 10 percent beyond inflation in the past five years, compared with 16 percent for master’s programs and 17 percent for doctoral programs in the same period. The trend for the past five years was different at private nonprofit colleges, where bachelor’s-degree tuition increased the most – 13 percent beyond inflation – and master’s and doctoral programs increased 7 percent and 9 percent, respectively.About 60 percent of students who earned bachelor’s degrees in 2012-13 from public and private nonprofit colleges graduated with debt. The average amount per borrower was $27,300, an increase of 13 percent over the past five years. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/11/13/report-shows-slowdown-tuition-increases-education-borrowing