Any of us already enrolled in a US university knows that college tuition costs are rising rapidly – but what you might not know is that they’re rising a lot faster than you probably thought.
BuzzFeed reports that investment management company Vanguard conducted a study about the rising costs of tuition – and the numbers aren’t pretty. According to Vanguard, tuition is rising, on average, at a rate of about 6% each year – meaning babies born this year could be looking at an average of $54,000 a year for public colleges, and $121,000 yearly for private colleges 18 years from now.
If you’re basically having a sticker shock-induced heart attack, you’re not alone (because, same). Basically, the sticker price for a degree from a private college could cost almost $500,000, and I’m not okay.
Incomes haven’t kept up with rising tuition prices either, with median incomes rising by only 4.3% in 2015 and 3% in 2014 – a.k.a. parents that want to send their children to college will have to start setting aside larger and larger portions of their income just to do so.
As BuzzFeed notes, there’s no one issue that’s causing tuition to skyrocket, but likely several, including construction and rennovation at private colleges especially, rising salaries for school administration and less state funding for public schools. While around 70% of students receive some kind of grant or scholarship money, 60% also have student debt – meaning the scholarship money available is already currently not enough.
If this isn’t a solid (and scary) enough reason for lawmakers to finally take action and work to make college costs more managable, we’re not sure what is, TBH.