College costs up again this year (6.6%)

[Roland99]

Source: MSNBC

College costs up again this year
Report: Average increase of 6.6 percent forcing students to borrow more
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21420361/

Average tuition and fees at four-year public colleges rose 6.6 percent this year, again outstripping increases in financial aid and pushing students into more borrowing. Community colleges once again did the best job keeping the lid on prices.

In-state students at four-year public schools are paying $6,185 this year, up $381 from last year, according to the nonprofit College Board's annual survey of college costs, released Monday. At four-year private colleges, tuition and fees rose 6.3 percent to $23,712.

The published price is not the real price for many students. On average, accounting for grants and tax breaks, full-time students are actually paying $2,577 this year to attend four-year public universities. That's $209 more than last year.

However, even the net price is still rising much faster than overall inflation. The net price at public universities is $560 higher, in 2007 dollars, than a decade ago. The five years have seen prices rise 31 percent above and beyond the general inflation rate for other goods and services — the worst record on college prices of any five-year period covered by the survey dating back 30 years.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21420361/

[Lone_Star_Dem]

1. Tell me about it

It's already price inhibitive for many students to attend university these days. Yet all it does is keep getting worse.

[Fridays Child]

2. As long as we peons can't...

...make our own reproductive decisions, become educated, or protect our health, the aristocracy will have a perpetual slave class available to serve their desires.

[Aviation Pro]

3. One of the great scams of corporate America....

...is the fact that they have education barriers to employment and they expect the single individual to bear the cost of being trained. Then they pay an entry-level salary, that is far below what the market should dictate, for the privlege of working for them.

Any politician that introduces a VAT on corporations to subsidize higher education in this country gets my vote. Winston Churchill once stated, "the greatest investment a country can make is to put milk into babies." This is an apt metaphor and it's time for the corporate fuckheads to start ponying up.

[heliarc]

4. 6.6% is a freaking crime.

There's no way to sustain this kind of increase in cost. Health care, Education... Someone should do a study on how Charter schools are privatizing the whole High school system. I know students whose parents have to pay thousands of dollars just for bus service now. Privatization is out of control.