December 3, 2008
COLLEGE COSTS.... [The following is a post from Paul Glastris, the Monthly's editor in chief.]
Some scary numbers out today about the growing unaffordability of college.
Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, adjusted for inflation, while median family income rose 147 percent.
The current economic downturn will probably make matters worse. Faced with revenue shortfalls, state legislatures usually cut spending on public colleges and universities; the institutions respond by jacking up tuition bills. The net result is that students and families have had to take on mountains of debt to pay for these incredible price increases. And, like everything in life, the poor are hit hardest:
Among the poorest families -- those with incomes in the lowest 20 percent -- the net cost of a year at a public university was 55 percent of median income, up from 39 percent in 1999-2000. At community colleges, long seen as a safety net, that cost was 49 percent of the poorest families' median income last year, up from 40 percent in 1999-2000.
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