Financial aid guide for students and parents

‘Inflation’ is a simple yet powerful term due to the hard fact that rising inflation has enduring social and economic impacts. Mere mention of this term snaps the attention of economists as rising inflation is undesirable. Economists are always concerned over rise in prices of commodities as it reduces the purchasing power of people. If high inflation of commodities is considered bad and taken so seriously, why a blind eye is being turned towards the rising inflation in tuition fees?

Like inflation affects the purchasing power of people, tuition inflation is affecting the cost of attending college. Sky high fees are acting as obstacles for entering a college or a professional course and turning it into a distant dream for many people. Even if some of them are fighting against the odds and arranging financial assistance for their education, it does not change the fact that education has become too expensive. It is making situation more tedious for parents saving for their child’s education as they are unsure how much should they save now that will be able to meet the inflation of tuition fees when their child matriculates.

Researches show that since 1986, general inflation has risen 115.06% and now we pay more than double for anything we buy. This percentage seems tolerable considering long duration from 1986 to 2011, but the shocking fact is yet to be revealed. Over the same time period, cost of tuition fees or tuition inflation has risen a massive 498.31%. Thus, in 1986, if the cost of tuition fees was $10000 then it should cost $21500 considering general rise in inflation which actually costs $59800 today. This is not just inflation; it is ‘disproportional’ inflation. In a situation, when inflation in a particular sector of economy exceeds general inflation, it is termed as ‘disproportional inflation’. Statistical data reveal that considering any 17 year period from 1951, tuition inflation has been in the range of 6% to 9%, which means that on an average, it rises 8% every year. In simple terms, these calculations can be summed up as cost of attending college almost doubles every 9 years. It is not even the case that cost of college education was high only in the old times. College Board Report shows that over the year 2010-11, tuition fees at public universities in U.S. rose around 8.3% which is almost double the general inflation for this period signaling that situation has still not changed. Thus, for a child born today, the cost of attending college will be 3 times the present costs which can be termed as the trend of tuition inflation.

The entire situation has given rise to several questions like what are intrinsic changes in college education that it has become almost three times expensive than it should be as per general inflation? Also, is only inflation a social issue? The negative impacts of tuition inflation are evident yet why is it not considered as a social issue? What is being done to curb this trend of tuition inflation and make college within the reach of most families? These bigger questions still remain unanswered.