Tomorrow’s Students May Face Astronomical Tuition Fees

By Elyse Morrigan

If parents today are dreaming of sending their children to Ivy League colleges in the future, they should expect to face bills of up to $422,320 if college costs keep rising as they have for the last three decades, writes Ashley Kindergan at The Daily.

“Tuition at America’s priciest college, Sarah Lawrence just north of New York City, might cost as much as $87,400 by 2030.”

An analysis by the Daily shows that the inflation-adjusted price of four years of tuition alone will nearly triple at public universities by the time today’s newborns are ready for college.

Using this model, a year’s tuition at the country’s most expensive college, Sarah Lawrence College, would balloon by 2030 to $87,400 from the current $45,212. And parents wanting their child to go to such well-regarded schools as the University of Chicago, Columbia University and Georgetown University should expect to pay the same.

This may not seem unreasonable — if family incomes increased in a similar fashion. However, census data has shown that incomes of families with at least one child under age 18 have grown only about 1 percent since 1987.

Timothy McDonough, a spokesman for the American Council on Education, said:

“For whatever constellation of reasons, college prices are going up significantly faster than family income.

“If you’re a median-income family, you have a perception that you’re falling behind, and you’re right.”

Despite families not having to pay the “sticker price” – this year, parents only had to pay $2,490 for a public school or $12,970 for a private school, despite annual tuition at $8,240 and $28,500 respectively — the net price of college, or what families pay after federal grants and other financial aid, has risen more slowly than total costs.

College Board data has shown costs including tuition, room and board have risen by about 44 percent at public universities, while total prices grew 67 percent, between the 1996-1997 school year and the 2011-2012 year.

The average 2010 college graduate who borrowed money for school graduated with $22,000 in debt from a public school and $28,100 in debt from a private school, coming at a time when the national student debt totals at about a trillion dollars.