US: Higher education costs increase for the most needy

As a result, we are witnessing an ever widening gap in access to higher education between the majority of Americans and those at the top. This gap in educational opportunity is driven by a historically unprecedented growth of income inequality.

Two College Board reports, “Trends in College Pricing 2006” and “Trends in Student Aid 2006,” reveal that although the rise in average tuition and fees for four-year public colleges has decreased over the past three years, college costs are still up 35 percent over the past five years, after adjusting for inflation. For the 2006-2007 academic year, tuition and fees at four-year public institutions increased by 6.3 percent ($344), or 2.4 percent after adjusting for inflation. At two-year public colleges, the increase in average tuition and fees for the same time period was 4.1 percent ($90), slightly less than one-half of one percentage point higher than the rate of inflation, and two percentage points below the increase for four-year institutions.

Compounding the financial burden of increased tuition and fees is the continuing decrease in student aid. While $134.8 billion in student aid was disbursed from state governments, institutions of higher learning and private sources, the inflation-adjusted dollars provided by all of the federal aid programs was actually lower in 2005-2006 than it had been earlier in the decade. Lower-income students were particularly disadvantaged. The average Pell Grant award, the largest and—because the money does not need to be repaid—most beneficial source of aid for middle- and low-income students, was $120 less in the 2005-2006 academic year than in the previous year.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/nov2006/pell-n15.shtml