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For the average full-time student, net tuition which subtracts grants and tax-based aid is less than half of the published price at private nonprofit four-year schools and less than a third of the published price at the typical public four-year institution.</p>
<p>Moreover, trends in sticker prices and net prices have diverged over the past several years, such that many students are actually paying less now to attend college than they would have five years ago. ... Only about one-third of full-time students pay the published sticker price, and even this third may receive significant tuition tax credits that lower the effective cost. ... at community colleges, the average student actually faces a negative net price meaning they receive about $800 more in aid than they are charged in tuition and fees.
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<p>and, controversially</p>
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This growing gap between sticker prices and net prices is not a bad thing; it enables colleges (or states) to price discriminate. Because tuition at most public and nonprofit institutions fails to cover per-student expenditures, keeping published prices low would mean providing a blanket subsidy to all students regardless of need.
<p>Sticker prices serve a purpose-- they are a signalling device in this market. As with some other products and industries, it is very well known in the education industry that the higher the tuition, the more highly valued the product. It explains why everyone has to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ on the tuition front (and I"m curious to watch what happens to colleges such as Seaton Hall that took the brave move to lower their tuition). </p>
<p>As just an anecdote, when we raised our tuition for our MBA program by a very drastic amount - 400% in one year- our applications tripled. This isn’t as amazing as it sounds to us as everyone in the industry knows this effect (but it was great that we finally got permission to change our tuition and demonstrate that it worked exactly as we had predicted it would).</p>
<p>Sorry, annasdad, but I don’t see that this relates much to the real cost of college then or now. The article is only talking about tuition, which is a fraction of the real cost, and very loosely substitutes “average student” for the aid per FTE that the College Board study uses. The average grant aid per FTE quoted by CB was $6539 and 51% of that came from the federal government. The average Pell grant (for eligible students) was $3828 for 2010/2011. </p>
<p>As we all know, less than half of undergraduates will ever be eligible for federal grant aid and all but 2 states and the District of Columbia use income as a qualification for their grant programs. Almost all of these programs have “hard” cut-offs so it seems disingenuous to use these figures to come up with any “average student” financial aid profiles when there are clearly at least two distinct groups.</p>
<p>And yet, my entire four years of private college (room, board, tuition, fees) cost my father $45K, which would not cover even a single year at the same college today for a family paying the full cost (which we would be, had my child matriculated there). So it certainly seems like the cost of college has gone up. I guess my math is off.</p>
<p>I don’t care how they spin it. How they try to turn it on its head. College is too expensive. It’s a producte being offered to 18 year olds. And the rigamarole about how they spend more to educate each student then the student pays is just an admission of poor money management and has nothing to do with what a state education should cost.</p>
<p>in the state of illinois, the budget calls for 17% for pension pay outs, 24% for medical expenses, and 7% for higher education. Nobody in their right mind can think this is a sustainable investment model.</p>
<p>According to the College Board, in 2006-07, 42% of full-time students at four-year institutions were at schools where the published tuition and fee charges (before any discounts) were under $6,000. Another 23% were at schools under $9,000.</p>
<p>So there are plenty of opportunities to go to college that are well within the means of middle class families. Yes, you can choose to spend a lot more. But that’s a choice, a choice largely driven by the fiction that it matters where you go to college.</p>
<p>So, you agree with that manner of spending our tax dollars and feel the state of illinois is funding its college system at the proper level? Good to know.</p>
<p>There’s some equivocation here. Obviously, we aren’t all saying the same thing when we use the word college.</p>
<p>Most frequent posters on CC–both students and parents–are talking about leading colleges and universities, whether public or private. We all know there’s a lot more talk on CC about Stanford or Virginia Tech or George Washington Univ. than there is about living at home and commuting to Wichita State or Pasadena City College.</p>
<p>If community colleges and less competitive public colleges and universities remain affordable options for most students in America, I’m sincerely glad. But this fact has nothing whatsoever to do with the price affluent families are paying to send their children to private LACs or research universities, state flagships, etc. Obviously, those prices have been rising much faster than inflation for over a generation.</p>
<p>Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is a debatable question. It’s clearly bad for my family; there’s a credible argument to be made that it isn’t bad overall.</p>
<p>But most of what I see in this article has little to do with most CC posters and their families, except perhaps to give them some perspective on what the words college and expensive mean to a lot of the people who don’t post on College Confidential.</p>
<p>Well, my point was more that the article isn’t addressing the fact that one has many other expenses to consider that are every bit as “real” as tuition! According to CB’s study, Trends in College Pricing, tuition AND fees combined are actually less than 50% of actual costs(often much less) at public 2 and 4 year colleges. Fees at many publics schools give a big bump to that low published tuition rate! Tuition at the private 4 year schools would account for a more substantial portion of total cost. So maybe there are actually 4 or more groups!</p>
<p>Hopefully you read the rest of the sentence you posted as the term “commuter students” is used to include all students that aren’t living in university-owned housing. Every kid who lives off campus still has living and transportation expenses. I think most people would include those expenses as real costs. </p>
<p>I actually did note the sentence that you added emphasis to and that’s what prompted me to point out that CB did not average grant aid across all students, but actually used FTE, which would be a smaller number of students. Dividing total grant aid by a smaller number would naturally skew the results and has to be properly explained, which CB did. FTE is an important distinction when one considers the fact that there are so many Pell-eligible students who attend school on a part-time basis. So, it was a poorly worded reference, imho, as the author never bothered to explain her definition of “average student” and then implied that all students were counted individually. </p>
<p>This is what the CB study actually said:</p>
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<p>One thing I always wonder about is if the tax credit/deduction figures are ever offset by the tax revenues from students whose aid exceeds qualified expenses. I am getting way too analytical these days…</p>
<p>It is not fiction, since it does matter that the college has a decent degree program in your major, though it is certainly possible for most students to find less expensive colleges with decent degree programs in their majors.</p>
<p>Also, a high achieving student from a good high school may need to find a college with sufficiently rigorous (possibly honors) courses to avoid being bored (note the thread about college being easier than high school).</p>
<p>40% increase in tuition?! :eek: I know that if you are starting from a small base, a 40% increase may still be quite affordable. But I’m guessing that there are families on the financial bubble who calculated in a much smaller annual increase when planning out how to pay for 4 years of college…</p>
<p>The real cost of going to college HAS changed. </p>
<p>How many people do you know who were able to “work their way through college”, while living either on campus or in off campus housing (not at home) back when you went to college? I knew quite a few people who did just that. They were able to pay their own way by working full time in the summer, and part time (or as an RA) during the school year, and graduated with no debt or a very small amount of debt.</p>
<p>How many kids would be able to do that today? None that I know of. It is just not possible to earn enough money as a college student to “work your way through college”.</p>
<p>The report shows that the net cost of tuition+fees for private colleges is about the same as it was in 2001, and less than it was in 2006, after adjusting for inflation.</p>
<p>Annasdad, please correct me if I’ve misread. Isn’t this an average of 2.4% per year faster than inflation? Which if compounded over ten years, is about 25% above the rate of inflation?</p>
<p>As the full CB report acknowledges, the actual net price varies depending on family circumstances, the type of institution chosen, and other variables. </p>
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<p>So for full-pay families where net cost = published cost, college is indeed just as expensive as you think. Yes, these families can choose to send their children to cheaper schools. What is stunning to so many of us is that the public schools we attended a few decades back are now far more expensive for our children. </p>