The hidden cost of college: rising student fees - Jeffrey J. Selingo, Washington Post

With tuition bills arriving as the fall semester starts, students and parents might notice a line with a pretty big number next to it: student fees. During their college search, many prospective students tend to pay attention to tuition. But in the last decade, fees have started to make up a larger share of the overall bill, particularly at public campuses. Higher education as an industry is also heading into a lean period of growth. Enrollment has fallen five straight years. Last spring there were 81,000 fewer high-school graduates than the year before. After decades of a fairly steady upward expansion in the number of high school graduates nationally, in the next decade only the South and to a certain extent the West will account for nearly all the growth in the high-school population. At the same time, the Northeast and Midwest—home to the highest density of colleges—show a continued and steady decline. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/08/24/the-hidden-cost-of-college-rising-student-fees/?utm_term=.fb943657290a&wpisrc=nl_highered&wpmm=1