US College Tuition

According to an article written by Shweta Govindarajan in the Los Angeles Times (Oct. 22, 2003), public college tuition has increased nationally 47% over the last decade as found in a study released by the College Board. Closely following are private institutions with increases of 42%. In one year alone, public schools reported tuition increases of 14.1%, private schools increased 6%, and 2-year community college students were faced with an increase of 13.8%.

Lawmakers are attempting to get involved as the common consensus is that the cost of higher education in general is quickly getting out of hand. Some are even going as far as to say that such increases are making college education a thing mostly for the wealthy of society as the cost is soon going to be out of the reach of the common student. One of the major arguments regarding tuition increases is that such raises in tuition are not corresponding with inflation, but rather often for the benefit of these so-called "non-profit" schools. A Congressman in California even stated that he believed this practice should be considered Illegal and should result in strict penalties. I believe that there needs to be something done to balancing the cost of higher education. Perhaps allowing parents to deduct tuition from their income tax would help. How about aligning the tuition increases to correspond with inflation? As such, simply just not increasing tuition beyond what is actually needed isn't a bad idea either.