Tuition vs. Inflation
November 9, 2011 in Tuition
When it comes to four-year programs, the average cost of tuition at a career college increased by less than the rate of inflation this year – something state-run colleges and universities can’t even come close to saying.
For 2011, inflation in the U.S. has clocked in at 3.9%. At the same time, tuition at a public college jumped a whopping 8.9%, well over double inflation.
Private non-for-profit schools did much better, overshooting inflation by a much smaller margin. Students there saw tuition rise 4.5%.
While tuition did go up at career colleges, it stayed solidly below inflation at only 3.2%.
While I understand the need for all schools to increase tuition from time to time this story certainly hightlights the issue of the increasing cost of education. Career Colleges have often been placed in a position to explain or defend their cost of attendence with never a question to that of the public colleges/universities. And what about the huge amounts of taxpayer money that goes to these state colleges every year that offsets the cost of tuition? How much does that state education really cost?