The Rising Price of Higher Education

State spending for public colleges and universities dropped sharply last year, as the state-by-state numbers contained in this special report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education demonstrate. At the same time, tuition and required fee charges rose significantly in many states, and some states reduced their student financial aid programs.

The result was the worst fiscal news for public higher education institutions and their students in at least a decade, as the economic recession struck almost every state. So far this year, the picture looks even bleaker, with states continuing to cut higher education appropriations and campuses responding by raising tuition even higher, imposing new fees and reducing student financial assistance.

he report's numbers come from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis; the U.S. Bureau of the Census; the National Association of State Budget Officers; the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems; the Washington (state) Higher Education Coordinating Board; and the annual "Grapevine" report published by the Center for the Study of Education Policy, at Illinois State University.

They show that state support for higher education, measured in current dollars, increased only 1.2 percent, a sharp decline from last year's 3.5 percent and the smallest increase in a decade. Appropriations dropped in 14 states, with the largest decline-11 percent-in Oregon.

Tuition and mandatory fee charges at four-year public institutions rose in every state, startlingly so in some cases. In Massachusetts, for instance, tuition jumped from $3,295 to $4,075, an increase of 24 percent, largest in the nation. Iowa, Missouri and Texas increased tuition and required fees by 20 percent, North Carolina by 19 percent, Ohio by 17 percent. Sixteen states increased tuition and fees by more than 10 percent.

Tuition increased by just two percent in New York State last year, but Governor George Pataki, after cutting the State University of New York's 2003-2004 budget by $184 million, proposed a 35 percent increase in SUNY undergraduate tuition. The governor trimmed the City University of New York budget by $83 million, but left it up to the system's governing board to determine tuition charges.

Community college tuition and mandatory fees rose in all but two states (California and Maine), with 10 states registering increases of more than 10 percent. The biggest increases were in Massachusetts and South Carolina, where charges jumped 26 percent.

By William Trombley

Read more at: http://www.highereducation.org/reports/affordability_

supplement/affordability_1.shtml