Does anyone have a good way or tool for estimating the anticipated increase in tuition costs for the next 4 years at a particular school? We are seriously looking at an LAC with a merit offer. The merit offer is static for 4 years (certain amount every year, no increases), but it is hard to calculate the bottom line based on unknown top line tuition increases. I have researched their historical increases and asked the financial aid counselors if they could tell me (they couldn’t). The average increase for the past 10 years has been 4.5% per year. Is that what we should anticipate? If there anything else to go on or anyone else to contact? Thanks for the help.
Google to try to find recent tuition AND FEE increases for this school. Determine the rate of increase (make sure to include fees, because these sometimes go up at a greater rate than tuition), and you will have the best guess possible (of course, just a guess).
You could drive yourself nuts trying to figure out the best way to project future increases, but I think what you have done is as good as it’s going to get. Just take that average over the past 10 years and assume that’s what you will see for the next four. It won’t be perfect, but nothing will, and 4.5% sounds like a reasonable number.
Thanks. I have heard of some schools that have frozen increases, or have boards that meet to determine these things (insider info), like a strategic plan of some sort. I was hoping to dig that up, but I doubt it is easily discernable.
In the absence of better data I would use the 4.5%.
^^^
Agreed…and apply that 4.5% to tuition, fees, and room and board. Increases happen at all levels.
Sometimes schools get tricky and minimally increase tuition, but then really increase fees or add new ones.
Also, keep in mind that in addition to the various “university fees”, many classes have “course fees” which are somewhat like “lab fees” but are widely applied because of technology and paper costs.
Some colleges may have @$50 per class course fee…and some have $100+ per class course fees. I’ve seen some report that “course fees” can add another $1k to a semester’s cost!
The bright spot…your student will be able to take $6500 in Direct Loans for soph year…and $7500 in both jr and senior years…that $1000 increase for soph and jr years can help offset some cost increases.
This particular school is guaranteeing graduation within 4 years (with a reasonable GPA), or they pay extra tuition beyond 4 years. I have noticed this as a new marketing tool at several schools, but happen to think it is a good one!
You can look at increases in tuition, room and board on the College Navigator website also. For my kids’ schools, there is cost data for 4 years, ending with the 2015-16 school year.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator
@Portercat are there other exceptions besides GPA? What if a student changes their major?
Graduation guarantees likely have other conditions like following your major’s course plan, taking full course loads, etc…
Is the school public or private? If public, tuition increases may be much more dependent on the economy. A recession reduces tax revenue, resulting in budget cuts, resulting in tuition hikes.
For one of mine, just add $2000 to tuition every year. The fees have stayed the same, the R&B went up a lot last year but she was already living off campus. When we were looking at the school when she was in high school, the tuition was about $32,500. This year (junior) is it almost $40k, and will surely go above that for her senior year. That is a huge difference from what we looked at. Her merit award was set her freshman year and doesn’t increase.
My other child is at a public school and it has increased a little but not that much (percentage). Last year she took the spring semester off and this year she’s doing a semester abroad (actually cheaper than if I paid the tuition on campus by a couple thousand), so I don’t really know what the increase for the entire year is. She pays by the credit, so a 14 credit semester is cheaper than a 17 credit semester.
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When we were looking at the school when she was in high school, the tuition was about $32,500. This year (junior) is it almost $40k, and will surely go above that for her senior year. That is a huge difference from what we looked at. Her merit award was set her freshman year and doesn’t increase.
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that is an important point when looking at tuition while a child is still in high school, and an important point about how a set-amount merit scholarship becomes less effective as tuition rises, but merit does not.
Some schools will increase merit, but usually only if it’s for full tuition or half tuition AND the school states that the award will increase as tuition increases.
@mom2collegekids I am not sure of all of the stipulations around the 4 year guarantee. I will definitely look into it. I just have noticed more LACs doing this to separate themselves from public universities, where it may be more difficult to graduate on time.
If it’s a LAC and the COA increases in the future due to tuition increases, is there a possibility that they would increase need based aid or award higher work study amount?
@mommdc, I would think this could change, as you need to fill out the FAFSA every year. At this point, we are not eligible for need based aid.
I think the 4.5% is good. at my older D’s college it hasn’t even been that much of an increase in tuition, and we’ve been able to save because she has more housing options now and has been able to go to a very minimal meal plan now that she has a studio with a kitchen instead of a traditional dorm. We are not actually paying more now than we were when she started. Do some research on housing options and meal plan requirements for future years.
The big cost shock for us was spring break airfare. Yikes.
If you want a worst case scenario, Common Data Sets contain cost information, and are usually available for a number of years. Take a look at the increases 2007-2010. Our state universities almost doubled tuition in that time frame.
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it. I just have noticed more LACs doing this to separate themselves from public universities, where it may be more difficult to graduate on time
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I think that’s a myth. It’s not typically more difficult to graduate on time at publics. When kids aren’t graduating on time, it is almost always the students’ fault…changing majors, refusing to take courses at less popular times, dropping classes, not taking a full load, and/or not being “college ready” and having to take sub100 classes first.
And, many publics are generous with AP/DE credits, which means that many kids could graduate in less than 4 years. Both of my kids could have graduated after 3 years but chose to spend their 4th year taking course “for interest”.
I think that publics also seem to have more options for completing missing courses at other times. Transfers from CCs, more online offerings to fill in the gaps, etc…
I think 4.5% sounds like a reasonable assumption if that’s been the historical rate. D1 attended a LAC starting in 2008 where that was about the yearly increase with an odd year of 2% due to the economic issues during those years. Son now attends that LAC so I went back to look at fees. Suprisingly, the fees have stayed fairly steady since then.