College is getting harder to pay for, even though tuition growth is slowing down, according to two reports released by the College Board last Wednesday.
The reports show low levels of grant aid prevented the net price of tuition students pay from falling in the 2013-14 academic year.
Average national tuition at four-year institutions is $8,893, only a 0.9 percent annual increase in tuition since the 2012-13 academic year, the lowest rate of increase in 30 years, according to the College Board report titled “Trends In Higher Education.”
“From a student’s perspective, that’s really good news,” College Board policy analyst Kathy Payea said. “The difficult side is that not everybody gets financial aid, so for families that are paying the full price, any increase is difficult.”
Full-time students at four-year public universities received an average of $5,770 in grant aid and tax reductions for the 2013-14 academic year, according to the report. But despite promises of lower tuition growth rates, this amount of aid does not keep the net price of tuition down. In the last five years, the average student burden rose by $700.
The University, as a four-year public university, ranks above the national average in tuition for in-state and out-of-state students. But in keeping with national trends, the tuition growth rate has slowed in recent years, University spokesperson McGregor McCance said.
“The Board of Visitors approved increases in in-state, undergraduate tuition and fees in the past two academic years that were among the smallest percentage increases in the past decade,” he said. “Each year’s increase was less than four percent.”
In-state tuition and fees at the University for the 2013-14 year are $12,458, a 23 percent increase from the numbers five years ago. By contrast, the average in-state tuition for the state of Virginia is $10,366, but this marks a 29 percent increase from five years prior.
The University charges significantly above the national average tuition for out-of-state students, $22,203. The University’s out-of-state tuition is $39,844, a figure that ranks among the highest in the nation. The average out-of-state tuition in Virginia is $28,468.
Higher-than-average tuition costs at the University and the state as a whole may be because of the comparatively low funding Virginia receives from the federal and state governments.
“U.Va. has relatively high costs compared to the average higher-ed institution due to high quality — and therefore relatively expensive — faculty and good facilities,” Economics Prof. William Johnson said. “U.Va. also has relatively low contributions from state funding. In-state tuition is in some sense the difference between the two; how much does it cost to educate a student, less how much are the taxpayers contributing.”
In the 2012-13 academic year, Virginia public institutions received an average of $5,631 per full-time student in state appropriations. The national average for appropriations provided by states was $6,646 per full-time student in the same year.
In the last decade the University devoted a larger portion of tuition revenue toward expanding AccessUVa, the University’s financial aid program, McCance said. In addition, revenues are being used to tackle “increased costs associated with higher Virginia Retirement System contributions and health insurance rates, bonuses and salary increases, utility rate increases and support for new buildings,” he said.
From 2000 to 2010, expenditures at four-year public institutions per full-time student rose by only $547 per full-time student. In the same period, the amount of expenditures covered by tuition revenue rose by $2,300 per full-time student, while subsidies to offered per student fell by $1,754.
Payea said it is important for families to remember the constraints public universities face when setting tuition prices.
“It’s not that colleges are being irresponsible,” she said. “Colleges are facing the same price increases that we are as consumers.”
Recent economic trends may also have played a role in students’ ability to pay for four-year institutions, Johnson said, though the effects were not entirely clear.
“High unemployment rate during the recession and its aftermath increases the demand for college education,” he said. “On the other hand, lower household wealth and income reduce the demand for college education. The net effect of the financial crisis on college attendance is the balance between the two.”
— Katherine Wilkin contributed to this report
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