Why Is College So Expensive?
Tuition at the University of California, Berkeley, was about $700 a year back in the 1970s. Today, U.C. Berkeley students have to fork over around $15,000 per year. That’s a 2,000 percent increase. There’s a simple explanation, according to Sandy Baum, who teaches at George Washington University. “States are paying less of the cost than they used to,” Baum says. She adds that as state budgets shrink, the students’ share of paying for education goes up… Richard Vedder, who runs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, says the more government aid goes up, the more tuition rises. He says limits on grants and loan subsidies would cap spiraling tuition prices. “That reduces the demand for college, and that is going to tend to reduce the ability of colleges to raise tuition fees,” Vedder says. Many economists question that link. So does Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, who has pushed for more college aid for low-income students. In fact, Duncan and others argue that the problem is that grant aid hasn’t risen fast enough.
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by Larry Abramson, NPR.