Students are left in a serious quandary as states slash budgets to make room for potential sequestration consequences. As a result, tuition at state schools moved up showing the increasing strain on the higher education sector.
Students were paying tuition costs 8.3 percent higher, after state and institutional grants and scholarships, than they were a year prior, the biggest jump yet, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal. The median rise for tuition as a whole was 4.5 percent.
Average state funding per student fell by more than 9 percent. The recession caused many states to begin trimming the fat in many areas of their budgets, some starting with higher education.
Rising tuition costs are “another example of the bind that public institutions are in,” Sandy Baum, an economist at Skidmore College, told the Wall Street Journal. “Unless we make public funding a higher priority, the funds are going to have to come from parents and students.”
Tuition on a national stage, after institutional grants and scholarships, increased to $5,189 in 2011 to 2012 from $4,793 a year earlier, which is based on the 2011-2012 academic year and adjusted its figures for inflation. Tuition revenue accounted for a record 47 percent of educational funding at public colleges last year, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal.
For more on rising costs, head over to WSJ.