College tuition on the rise
Hikes are substantial often in the range of 3 percent to 4 percent, and sometimes even more —
At the University of Virginia, where prices were little changed last year, tuition and fees for state residents who pay in full are up nearly 6 percent for the coming school year, to about $20,350. Howard University’s sticker price, after a similar pause, has risen more than 7 percent to about $31,050.
These schools, one public and one private, underline the new inflation-fueled reality for many college students: The price freezes and other unusual bargains that coincided with the first two years of the pandemic are over.
Colleges and universities across the country, squeezed by sharply rising labor and supply costs, are taking steps to fortify their revenue and resume their pre-pandemic patterns of annual tuition increases. These price hikes, for the most part, do not appear to be as high as the overall national inflation rate measured at 8.5 percent in July.
But they are substantial — often in the range of 3 to 4 percent sometimes more. For many students and parents, that means significantly higher college bills in the fall term.
Tia Pitts, 19, a Howard sophomore who is majoring in broadcast journalism, said the list of expenses she faced before classes resume led to a panic attack.
“I kind of shut down thinking about all of the financial responsibilities,” Harris said. “I have to spend more money for housing. I have to buy more things for the room. It’s just a lot and that’s not even including tuition.”
Some schools continue to freeze tuition. Purdue University in Indiana boasts it has held in-state prices virtually constant — about $10,000 for base tuition and fees — for the past decade. Most public universities in Virginia complied this year with a request from Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin to freeze tuition.
U-Va., which set its rates in December, before Youngkin took office, did not. Full tuition and fees for a Virginian starting at the public flagship in Charlottesville are now estimated to be 5.8 percent more than the year before, according to university and federal data. The previous increase, for fall 2021, was 1.5 percent. Those figures don’t count room and board and other expenses.
Phillip B. Levine, an economist at Wellesley College who has studied higher-education pricing, said tuition freezes are problematic for schools that aim to provide substantial grants to families with low-to-moderate income. The reason is that freezes limit revenue that could be used for financial aid. “The money has to come from somewhere,” Levine said. “And it needs to come from higher-income families.”
U-Va. has an expansive financial aid program, committing to meet the full demonstrated need of students through grants, scholarships, work-study and limited loans. That kind of pledge is rare for public universities. Tuition revenue helps to back it up.
“Nobody likes to raise tuition,” said Jennifer “J.J.” Wagner Davis, U-Va.’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. “It’s a balancing act, looking at all of the needs … and trying to make sure we can provide an excellent educational experience.”
Nationally, prices had remained nearly flat at the start of the pandemic as colleges scrambled to maintain enrollment amid widespread campus closures and a shift to virtual learning. Average tuition and fees inched up 1.2 percent for public universities in fall 2020 and 1.6 percent in fall 2021, according to the College Board. Those were the lowest increases, in percentage terms, since the 1970s. A similar pattern held for private colleges and universities, with increases of 1.1 percent in 2020 and 2.1 percent last year.
In the decade before the pandemic, College Board pricing data shows, a typical annual increase was around 3 percent in the public sector and 3.7 percent in the private sector. But prices sometimes rose much more: There was an 8.5 percent jump in average public university tuition and fees in fall 2011.
The recent national spike in consumer prices, with inflation reaching 9.1 percent in June is disrupting the finances of higher education. Inflation can erode the value of endowments. Schools face higher costs for utilities, supplies and food. They are also under pressure to raise salaries to avoid losing faculty or staff to more lucrative jobs. Many universities reduced or froze faculty salaries at the start of the pandemic. Now payrolls are rising again.
Building maintenance, renovation and new construction are also more expensive now than colleges had planned. At the same time, federal pandemic relief that had helped support college and university budgets is winding down. It is unclear how long state funding for public higher education can hold steady.
“The inflationary and cost pressures are real,” said George Suttles, a higher-education expert at the asset management firm Commonfund. “Some colleges and universities are still trying to figure it out.”
No national data is yet available with detailed college prices for the coming year. But a Washington Post check of estimated costs of attendance for entering freshmen found an array of increases.
Among private universities in the District of Columbia, school and federal data shows, full tuition and mandatory fees rose 3.5 percent at Georgetown University, 3.9 percent at Catholic University, 4.2 percent at George Washington University, 4.9 percent at American University and 7.4 percent at Howard. School officials cited rising internal costs but said they offer significant aid to students in need.
Elsewhere in the country, school and federal data shows, tuition and fees for entering in-state freshmen were up about 3 percent at the universities of Massachusetts and Michigan, about 4 percent at the universities of California at Berkeley and Minnesota and nearly 5 percent at the universities of Colorado and Connecticut. Oregon State University showed a 6 percent increase.