• Higher education: Read and gape Higher education: Read and gape From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – November 8, 2004 Earning a degree from a public college will set you back at least $44,000, and that’s not including the mini-fridge,
• Higher education: Read and gape
Higher education: Read and gape
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – November 8, 2004
Earning a degree from a public college will set you back at least $44,000, and that’s not including the mini-fridge, the iPod and any tuition increases the school might impose during your four-year stay. This news is in the College Board’s latest report on the cost of higher education.
The $44,000 figure used to be associated with private college cost, but now that’s the amount a student can expect to spend as an in-state student at a typical four-year public school. The report says the overall cost for attending these schools has risen by 8 percent to $11,354 a year. It says tuition alone at these schools now averages $5,132, due in part to last year’s 13 percent tuition increase, the first double-digit rise in 10 years.
Tuition at the University of Missouri system rose 7.5 percent this year, far less than the nearly 20 percent increase last year. Students attending one of the system’s four campuses are paying $6,276 in tuition, said to be 22 percent higher than the national average for four-year public colleges.
At the University of Illinois, tuition went up 8 percent for returning students and 16 percent for new undergrads. Illinois now has a truth-in-tuition law, which guarantees a constant tuition rate for the first four years of a student’s education at a public college.
The full cost of attending a private four-year college has risen 6 percent, to $27,516 a year, the College Board said. Washington University’s tuition rose by 4.9 percent, boosting the cost to $29,700, a figure that’s said to be on the high end nationally. The lowest tuition for any private school in Missouri is at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, where tuition has been $11,200 for three straight years.
These numbers tell only part of the story. The other part has to do with the number of needy students who are shut out of college because of these prices. During the 2000 presidential campaign, President George W. Bush made the worthy promise to provide maximum Pell grants of $5,100 to freshmen. But the budget that Mr. Bush released earlier this year limits Pell awards to $4,050 for the third straight year. Meanwhile, the Pell program is awarding fewer dollars on the basis of need, meaning low-income students can count on a smaller share of federal assistance at the very time that state support for higher education is declining.
Washington needs to start looking at investments in higher education as investments in this nation’s future. Mr. Bush has said the right thing about the need for Americans whose jobs have disappeared or moved overseas to return to the classroom and learn new skills.
The only thing missing from that advice is more generous assistance to displace workers and young people alike to cover the tuition.
