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September 17, 2010 10:00 AM
Colleges (Briefly) Not More Expensive
After a decade of college costs (the actual cost of running an institution, not the price of tuition) increasing at the rate of two to five percent a year, they barely rose at all last year. According to a piece by Rachel Louise Ensign in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Plummeting utility prices and stagnant salaries left costs at colleges and universities nearly unchanged in 2010, compared with the previous year, according to an annual index released… by the Commonfund Institute.
The Higher Education Price Index, which measures eight kinds of costs incurred by colleges and universities, rose 0.9 percent nationwide in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, the smallest increase in its history.
While the cost of runny a college is still increasing, it’s not increasing by nearly as much as it used to. This also marks the first time in five years that the Higher Education Price Index was lower than the rate of inflation. In the past year the consumer price index—which defines inflation—rose 1.2 percent.
So when will this reduced cost make its way to tuition? Don’t hold your breath.
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Ron Mexico on September 19, 2010 10:59 AM:
"Don't hold your breath" for state governments to increase their ever-declining funding for universities, you mean. Or are you actually asserting, in some mind-boggling display of ignorance, that universities facing serious future uncertainty, restricted in raising future tuition by measures like Illinois' so-called "Truth in Tuition" legislation (which merely encourages universities to raise tuition more rapidly), should slash tuition because of a one-year dip, not in actual costs, but in the rate of cost increases? Please.