Attention Economy


Friday, February 21, 2025

Is College Education Becoming More Affordable?

The Secret That Colleges Should Stop Keeping
https://www.yahoo.com/news/secret-colleges-stop-keeping-130000330.html
In survey after survey, Americans say that the cost of getting a degree just keeps rising.
But this basic fact of life is not a fact at all. In reality, Americans are paying less for college, on average, than they were a decade ago. Since the 2014–15 school year, the cost of attending a public four-year university has fallen by 21 percent, before adjusting for inflation, according to College Board data analyzed by Judith Scott-Clayton, a professor of economics and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College. (Nearly three-quarters of American college students attend a public institution.) The cost of attending a private university has risen in raw terms over the same time period, but is down 12 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars. Once tax benefits are factored in, according to a recent Brookings Institution analysis, the average American is paying the same amount for tuition as they were in the 1990s.