Washington – College costs are rising less severely this year but are still significantly above the national inflation rate, the College Board said Tuesday.
At four-year public colleges, the increase in average tuition and fees slowed for the third year in a row, the New York- based nonprofit organization said, but prices were still up 35 percent from five years ago even after adjusting for inflation.
Average tuition and fees for four-year public colleges in 2006-07 reached $5,836, up 6.3 percent over the previous academic year.
Tuition and fees for four-year private colleges went to $22,218, up 5.9 percent, and for two-year public colleges to $2,272, up 4.1 percent. The College Board said the national inflation rate for the same period was 3.82 percent.
Kalman Chany, author of the Princeton Review book “Paying for College Without Going Broke,” said the figures underline the fact that it continues to be more difficult for families to pay for college. He said parents and students should look carefully at loan and scholarship programs and do everything possible “to minimize the sticker price.”
Congress has tried to adjust federal aid to college students, and many state political campaigns this year include allegations that some officials have let tuition get too high.
The College Board report said that total student aid increased by 3.7 percent last year, not keeping up with college cost inflation.
Even without factoring in inflation, the report said, the average federal Pell Grant for low-income students fell by $120 per participant.
On average, full-time students receive about $9,000 in aid a year in the form of grants and tax benefits in private four-year institutions, $3,100 in public four-year schools and $2,200 in public two-year colleges.
Chany noted that the College Board figures show that families should be particularly attentive to the possibility that some well-regarded private colleges may cost no more than similarly prestigious out-of-state public universities when all the costs are figured in.
