Most colleges and universities raise their sticker price every year, but a few state institutions have made more drastic increases recently.
“When it comes to public institutions, they have lower tuition levels and have more room to increase than private institutions,” says Anil Prahlad, chief content officer at Hanover Research, a firm specializing in higher education market research.
U.S. News data show that among National Universities, tuition and fees have soared the most for in-state students over the last 10 years. The average in-state tuition and fees at public schools increased from $6,468 in the 2007-2008 academic year to $10,691 in 2017-2018 — a 65 percent jump, according to data reported by 300 ranked National Universities in an annual survey.
In comparison, the average tuition and fees at a private university rose by 49 percent, and the average out-of-state tuition and fees climbed 55 percent during that same period.
The bulk of sticker-price increases at private and public schools among all types of colleges and universities are attributable to the Great Recession, higher education policy analysts say. For the most part, hikes in tuition and fees have slowed, says Kim Dancy, a senior policy analyst in higher education at New America, a policy research center in Washington, D.C.
[Check out 20 years of tuition growth at National Universities.]
“Overall, the change in sticker price happened primarily during the recession, but there’s sort of an inflationary increase that will happen every year of up to 1 to 4 percent. But during the recession the average increases were much higher than that, particularly among four-year public institutions,” Dancy says.
Researchers of higher education trends say in-state tuition is subject to additional increases, since prices for out-of-state tuition are more closely tied to the cost of providing education and less related to state spending. Some state schools are continuing to raise prices at much higher rates to offset state budget cuts or through revenue spending to grow their brand names, says Prahlad.
Preston Cooper, a research analyst in education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, says state schools that had much lower published prices before the Great Recession are more likely to have raised prices to be in line with the national average. So, it’s harder to find a “bargain” at the state level, he says.
The University of West Florida in Pensacola has increased its in-state tuition the most over the last 10 years. For the 2007-2008 academic year before the Great Recession, the university was priced much lower than most public schools, charging Floridians $3,016 for tuition and fees. For the 2017-2018 school year, the institution’s in-state tuition and fees are $9,014 — a jump of 198 percent in more than a decade.
UWF’s in-state price is still slightly lower than the national average for in-state tuition and fees for the current academic year, which is $9,528.
Julia Thorpe, a spokesperson for UWF, told U.S. News in an email: “Between 2009 and 2013, each university was able to request increases of no more than 15 percent to their base tuition each year, pending Board of Governors’ approval. That provided the opportunity for Florida universities to increase their tuition to a level closer to the national median.”
Not all state schools raise tuition to keep pace with the national mean, though. Some institutions increase prices because of state budgetary cuts in higher education.
Prahlad from Hanover Research says a lot of cuts in student expenditures at the state level are needed to drive tuition increases. The state that has had the most notable increases is Louisiana.
The Bayou State cut its annual higher education budget by more than $458 million between 2008 and 2012, according to a 2014 report from the Center for American Progress. Subsequently, Louisiana increased tuition at its four-year state schools by 59 percent over the last five years, according to a 2016 College Board report. That’s more than six times higher than the national rate for percentage increases, which is 9 percent.
“Louisiana is actually kind of a double whammy,” says Prahlad. The state has “the Grad Act, which is a performance-based funding mechanism for higher ed institutions.”
The Grad Act permits certain institutions that meet specific criteria to increase tuition by up to 10 percent without state approval. From 2010 to 2016, Louisiana did “the tuition swap” through the act.
As a result of the Grad Act, all public universities in Louisiana had similar increases from the state, replacing funding with tuition and fee increases, says Teddy Allen, a spokesman from Louisiana Tech University, a school that doubled its in-state tuition and fees from $4,548 in 2007-2008 to $9,525 in 2017-2018.
[Consider the cost benefits of private colleges.]
Many other Louisiana public institutions have doubled tuition and fees over the last decade. Louisiana State University–Baton Rouge, as an example, raised tuition and fees from $5,086 in 2007-2008 to $11,374 in 2017-2018. The school increased its tuition and fees the most among public flagship schools in the U.S. and is now priced above the average in-state rate among National Universities.
Ernie Ballard III, media relations director at LSU, said in a statement to U.S. News that the university increased its price because of the swap in state funding.
Prahlad says the Louisiana schools are testing “the extent that the market can bear” with in-state tuition and fees. “Given the Grad Act, there’s few restraints and restrictions on them from increasing tuition,” he says.
But a handful of states haven’t seen as steep of an increase in tuition costs for their residents, notes Preston from AEI.
“Wyoming is one of the states with the lowest published tuition, and also Maryland has had some of the smallest increases in net tuition. So, those are two states that have figured out how to do something right,” he says.
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In-State Tuition Increases Sharply at Some Public Schools originally appeared on usnews.com
