In August, President Barack Obama championed a ratings system that could involve tracking the incomes of college graduates to create a return-on-investment calculator for individual schools to help prospective students better gauge the value of a degree before they pursue it.
These combined forces have helped drive down the net cost, which includes federal and school grants, at a private four-year college by $650 since 2007, when it cost $23,940 in today’s dollars.
But shrinking state aid for public colleges and universities has meant the cost of public schools has jumped $1,770 in inflation-adjusted dollars. The amount of government aid received last year fell to $6,646 for every full-time student at those institutions. Five years ago, each student received $9,111 in today’s dollars.
The moderation in tuition rises is a continuation of a trend that began last year, said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education.
“I think the key issue that we realized last year is that the marketplace was just saturated, and continuing to raise tuition at rates which were like 7% a year was just unsustainable,” Ms. Broad said.
Students face a job market that increasingly demands post-secondary credentials but doesn’t always pay well for them, especially in the short run. Samer Abdelmajid, 18 years old, started at the University of Illinois at Chicago this fall as a freshman. He works part time at McDonald’s to cover expenses while he studies health-information management. He said the strain was “definitely worth it.”
“Without a degree, you’re very limited,” he said. “It’s a way of getting out and moving up.”