College tuition is increasing more slowly now than it has in decades—but because of cutbacks in grants and aid, the net price of college education is not holding steady.
A recent College Board report titled Trends in College Pricing 2013 indicates that the tuition and fees at public, four-year colleges rose by 2.9 percent on average in 2013, representing the mildest increase in more than 30 years. The same report also shows that the net price—the cost after aid and grants are deducted—has increased at a steady pace due to a recent decrease in financial aid.
“Net price went down during the economic downturn mainly because of the increase in Pell Grants and tax benefits,” said Jennifer Ma, co-author of the report and independent consultant for The College Board, “But that kind of increase in student aid cannot really continue, which is why we now see the net price increasing as a result.”
According to the report, the average net price for public institutions has increased by more than 60 percent between 2009 and 2013, from $1,940 to $3,120 per year. The number rose from $11,550 to $12,460 between 2011 and 2013 for private institutions.
The tuition cost at Duke has been rising at a moderate pace. In the past five years, the tuition and fees have on average increased by 4 percent annually, said Alison Rabil, assistant vice provost and director of financial aid.
“We make sure [meeting students’ financial needs is] on the top of our priority list,” Rabil said. “The University wouldn’t take money from [financial aid] to fund another project, and we will offset other projects if we need money for financial aid budget.”
The average expected family contribution for Duke students in the 2011-2012 school year was $14,440.
Ma said that one of the reasons for the recent rise in net price, especially at public institutions, is the decline in state appropriations, which account for 30 percent to 50 percent of public institutions’ revenue.
The average state grant aid per full-time undergraduate student in North Carolina in 2012 was above the national average, but the cut in government budget for higher education is still imposing a burden on many post-secondary institutions in NC.
The tuition cost at North Carolina State University has increased approximately 7.5 percent each year over the last decade, wrote Krista Domnick, director of the Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid at NC State, in an email Wednesday.
“The university has made great efforts to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible but as funding resources are diminished, at least some of the lost funding must be recovered to continue to operate at the same level of excellence,” she wrote. “Often, the only remaining option is to increase tuition costs to do that.”
Similar to NC State, in-state tuition and fees at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has gone up 42 percent in the past five years, from $5,396 in 2008 to $8,340 in 2013, said Shirley Ort, associate provost and director of the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid at UNC.
Though the net price for the 2012-2013 academic year held steady and the full needs of students were met, it has become more of a challenge every year to offset the costs, Ort said.
Currently, the average annual cost for higher education institutions to educate one student is $38,500, which is higher than the average price students pay, Ma said. In order to counteract the rise of tuition and fees, colleges must find innovative methods to cut down costs, she added.
In addition to holding enrollment steady as a way of controlling cost, UNC also plans to advocate for higher federal and state grants and to launch an initiative to increase donations for funding of student aid, Ort said.
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