Colleges’ Tuitions Top Rate of Inflation

As the academic year approaches, students and their families generally will find college tuitions continuing to rise faster than inflation although public institutions, the overwhelming choice of Californians, will be more of a bargain than private schools, according to a new national survey.

The study released today by the College Board, the organization best known for its entrance examinations, showed that average tuition and fees for 1988-89 will be $1,566 at four-year public colleges and universities, an increase of 5% from the previous year. Students at four-year private schools will pay $7,693, a hike of 9%. Room and board, on average, will be about $3,000, up about 6%.

This will be the eighth straight year that tuition increases have been higher than the inflation rate for the general economy. The national Consumer Price Index rose 4% for the 12 months ending in June; it grew 4.7% in the Los Angeles-Orange County area, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

Increases Smaller Now

However, education officials point out that the tuition hikes are much smaller than they were in the early 1980s when annual increases were as much as 20% at public schools and 13% at private schools. Furthermore, they say that salaries, financial aid and expenses at colleges are increasing faster than the index of goods and services measured by CPI and faster than tuition hikes.

“We are labor intensive and that’s the uppermost thing,” said Lee Case, vice president for planning and development at Occidental College in Los Angeles where tuition and fees will be $12,078 and room and board $4,500 this year. That represents a total increase of about 7.5% from last year, slightly less than the increases in salaries and other expenses for the school, he said.

The most expensive undergraduate education in the nation this year, as well as last, is at Bennington College in Vermont, where costs of tuition, room and board total $18,990, according to the survey. It is followed by Sarah Lawrence College in New York, $18,760; Brandeis University in Massachusetts, $18,586; Barnard College in New York, $18,550; and Tufts University in Massachusetts, $18,282.

Among the most expensive schools in California are Stanford University, where the tuition, fees, room and board for an undergraduate will be $17,821, an increase of 5.8%; USC, $17,316, up 12%; Pepperdine University, $17,050, up 8.9%; and Harvey Mudd College, $16,980, up 7.4%.

‘Assure Diversity’

Ann Draper, director of financial aid at Harvey Mudd in Claremont, said the hikes are fueled by the need to keep professors’ salaries competitive and laboratory equipment up to date at the science and engineering school. “Our faculty can work in industry easily. If we don’t try to keep their salaries somewhat comparable, then we lose them,” she said.

At USC, Robert Biller, vice president for external affairs, said that private schools are increasing financial aid to attract more low-income and minority students and that some of those costs are being paid by non-scholarship students. “That’s how we assure diversity at this university. We don’t have any qualms about delivering that message,” said Biller, who added that the size of Cal Grants, state aid usable at private schools, is not keeping up with students’ needs.

However, only 10% of college students in California attend private institutions. And for California residents who attend state colleges here, higher education is a relative bargain, compared both to private institutions and public institutions in other states.

Not including room and board, the annual fees for a California resident at a University of California campus will be $1,492 this year, an increase of 4.4% over last year. At a California State University campus, annual fees for a state resident will be $684, up 8.6%. In comparison, tuition fees for state residents total $2,900 at the University of Michigan, $2,532 at the University of Illinois at Chicago, $2,440 at Ohio State in Columbus, and $1,515 at the State University of New York at Binghamton, according to the College Board.

Room and board at the California state schools range from $3,100 to $5,000.

Unfair Comparison?

Much public attention is unfairly focused on the cost of private institutions even though only about 25% of college students nationwide attend them, said Kent Halstead, a senior researcher at Research Associates of Washington, which studies education issues. “If you want to send your kid to Harvard, why complain about the price? . . . You might as well complain about the price of a Cadillac,” Halstead said.

Nearly half of all college students in the country receive some public or private financial aid, according to Donald Stewart, president of the College Board. So, the cost increases, he said, “need to be understood in context: Proper family financial planning and financial aid can put higher education within the reach of almost any qualified student.”

Overall financial aid nationwide remained relatively stable between 1984 and 1986 but increased by about $3 billion to $24.5 billion last year, the College Board reported. However, most of that increase was in unsubsidized loans. Financial aid figures for the upcoming school year were not available.

U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett frequently has criticized increases in tuition and fees as unwarranted. Bennett was on vacation and could not be reached for comment about the latest survey, an aide said.

THE COST OF ATTENDING COLLEGE The College Board ranked the most expensive private, four-year schools for the 1988-89 academic year. The list is based on known or projected charges for tuition and student fees, and room and board at 1,005 institutions reporting to the College Board by July 5, 1988.

Bennington (Vermont) $18,990 Sarah Lawrence (New York) 18,760 Brandeis (Massachusetts) 18,586 Barnard (New York) 18,550 Tufts (Massachusetts) 18,282 University of Chicago 18,225 Harvard/Radcliffe (Massachusetts) 18,210 Dartmouth (New Hampshire) 18,199 Boston University 18,175 New York University 18,100

And, the College Board ranked the most expensive public schools, based on known or projected charges for tuition and fees, and room and board at 275 four-year institutions reporting to the Board by July 5, 1988.

Jersey City State College (New Jersey) $7,464 University of Michigan 6,875 Virginia Military Institute 6,540 University of Illinois, Chicago 6,455 College of William and Mary (Virginia) 6,370 Virginia State University 6,356 Lyndon State College (Vermont) 6,291 Johnson State College (Vermont) 6,286 Old Dominion University (Virginia) 6,272 Trenton State College (New Jersey) 6,245

The College Board also found that tuition and student fees at the nation’s public and private four-year colleges increased most dramatically during the early 1980s. Figures represent average annual percentage increases in those costs for colleges nationwide.