WICHE Stat Alert: College Costs and Student Financing

This week the College Board released its annual Trends in College Pricing, showing that the rate of tuition increases at U.S. colleges and universities slowed for the second academic year in a row, rising less than 3 percent this academic year, the smallest rise in three decades. Or, as Ray Suarez of PBS Newshour quipped: “It didn’t get cheaper to go to public college and university in the United States, it just got more expensive more slowly.”

At the same time, declines in state support for higher education and in government aid to students mean that the amount students and families actually pay has risen. For data about aspects of student aid and college financing in recent years, see Degrees of Debt: Student Loan Repayment of Bachelor’s Degree Recipients 1 Year After Graduating: 1994, 2001, and 2009 for rates of borrowing, cumulative student loan debt and loan repayment for three cohorts of bachelor’s degree recipients 1 year after degree attainment. And, Student Financial Aid, Academic Year 2011–12 - First Look for data about student financial aid for the 2011-12 academic year from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) winter 2011-12 data collection, including the number of undergraduate students receiving aid and the amount of aid received by those students.

^{This report in its entirety was brought to you by: Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education}