Satyagraha

Cultural Psychology

College Tuition Inflation

with 25 comments

As promised, here is a graph showing the disparity between general cost-of-living inflation and inflation
associated with college tuition and fees (if the student I promised this to reads this, please let me know if the
post is clear):

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics and the College Board.

The figure compares inflation over the last 30 years associated with (1) the general cost of living, (2) the cost of
medical care, and (3) college tuition and fees.
Inflation factors were computed to answer the question: in each year, how many dollars would be needed to
have the same buying power as $1.00 had in 1978? The calculations made use of published data on the
Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers (CPI-U), the medical costs component of the CPI, and historical
data on inflation of college tuition and fees.

As is well known, medical care costs have grown faster than the general cost of living — by 2008, nearly twice as
much. This receives a lot of public a ention and many complaints.

Yet college tuition and fees inflated at a much faster rate: nearly three times that of general inflation. Thus
while it took $3.30 in 2008 to buy the same general commodities purchasable for $1.00 in 1978, for college tuition
and fees nearly $10 in 2008 was needed to buy what $1.00 got in 1978.

This excess inflation has, incidentally, occurred across the board: for both private and public 4-year colleges, and
for public 2-year colleges.

This is why students are being forced to take out exorbitant loans.

In short:

After adjusting for inflation, college tuition and fees are roughly three times more expensive now than in
1978. Why? What has intrinsically changed about college education so that this is the case?

Excess inflation of healthcare costs is a prominent issue and receives much a ention; but excess inflation of
college costs is even greater. Why is this not a major social issue?

Shouldn’t we be making a college education easier to obtain instead of more difficult? We claim to rely on young
people to make a be er world in the future. How are they supposed to do that when they step into adulthood
already burdened with debt?

Reading and Resources

The College Board. Trends in College Pricing. Princeton, NJ: 2008.

The Education Sector. Drowning in Debt: The Emerging Student Loan Crisis. July 2009

Ronald Ehrenberg. Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much. Harvard University Press, 2002.

The Project on Student Debt

Paul Strei . The Great American College Tuition Rip-Off. Oxford Institute Press, 2005.

Richard K. Vedder. Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much. American Enterprise Institute, 2004.

Penelope Wang. Is college still worth the price? Money Magazine. August 20, 2008.

Wri en by John Uebersax

July 14, 2009 at 7:49 pm

Posted in College tuition, Economics

25 Responses

Subscribe to comments with RSS.

[…] the late 1990s tuition prices are up over 400%, that’s nearly four times the cost of living increase families
faced during the […]

Are IT degrees now more expensive than they’re worth? | chamandy.org

April 19, 2010 at 4:39 am Edit

Reply
[…] should apply to Georgetown, but ugh. It’s too expensive. I don’t want to play into the backward tuition
game higher learning has fallen into. If I’m gonna borrow from Uncle Sam, it’s gonna be […]

The Path Least Taken » Blogger FAIL.

August 12, 2010 at 8:57 pm Edit

Reply
[…] […]

Is a parent OBLIGATED to pay for son's college? - Parenting -Children, problems, school, daycare,
behavior, age, teenagers, infants - Page 11 - City-Data Forum

August 12, 2010 at 9:24 pm Edit

Reply
[…] the time about the hyperinflation in health care costs, but the costs of higher education have been rising
even higher than medical costs. As the article I linked to notes there, for every $1 spent in 1978 on education,
you’d […]

The problem isn’t just for-profit universities… | Common Sense

December 23, 2010 at 7:37 pm Edit

Reply
[…] general is becoming more and more expensive. The average cost of college tuition went up nearly three
times as fast as the cost of living in the period from 1978-2008. I believe this is due to the increased […]

Law School – Good Choice or Bad Choice? « Romgi the Enigma

March 4, 2011 at 4:15 pm Edit

Reply
[…] prospects for the future. The key in that sentence, of course, is WAS: In the last three decades the cost of
tuition has grown over 300%, way beyond inflation, while decreasing in quality (more about my experiences
in higher education […]

» A Shout Out to the Critics Alex Kiselev

May 26, 2011 at 8:26 pm Edit

Reply
[…] prospects for the future. The key in that sentence, of course, is WAS: In the last three decades the cost of
tuition has grown over 300%, way beyond inflation, while decreasing in quality (more about my experiences
in higher education […]

» A Fellow’s Retort Alex Kiselev

May 26, 2011 at 8:31 pm Edit

Reply
[…] the following graph, made by John Eubersax from College Board and BLS […]

Ed-uflation: The Growth of Costs for College, Medicine, and the CPI Since 1978

October 16, 2011 at 12:34 am Edit

Reply
[…] compare to college costs? They pale in comparison, increasing only half as much, according to the
second chart. Whereas medical costs inflated at twice the rate of cost-of-living, college tuition and fees […]

The Rising Cost of a College Degree | RACBlog

November 3, 2011 at 11:31 pm Edit

Reply
[…] also: College Tuition: Inflation or Hyperinflation? GA_googleAddA r("AdOpt", "1");
GA_googleAddA r("Origin", "other"); […]

Hyperinflation of Tuition & Fees in the University of California « Satyagraha – Cultural Psychology

November 23, 2011 at 12:00 am Edit

Reply
I think you need to check the math. The rate of inflation was about 300% from 1978 to 2008 but if it took $10
in 2008 to purchase something that previously cost $1, then that represents a 1000% increase or ten times as
much. I don’t understand why more people are not asking their state legislatures about this because, as the
article points out, this is creating a situation where the middle class are being squeexed out of college. The
rich can handle the increase, the poor qualify for grants but the middle class who earn just enough not to
qualify for grants find it impossibly difficult to pay for college. Somehting is grossly amiss in this picture.
James Gregory

January 26, 2012 at 8:26 pm Edit

Reply
[…] race you are in when applying to the university. The cost for higher education has increased at twice the
rate of medical costs since 1978. Since 2000, tuition costs have doubled. The cost of higher education makes it
[…]

The Issue is Limited Access, not Affirmative Action « Tex Shelters Online

February 29, 2012 at 10:08 pm Edit

Reply
[…] and penny stocks. From 1978 to 2008, a cost of college preparation increasing during some-more than
triple a rate of inflation. Meanwhile, supervision assist to institutions of aloft training has nosedived in new
[…]

A National Service Corps Can Solve the Student Loan Crisis | College Loans Advice

May 31, 2012 at 4:34 pm Edit

Reply
[…] cost of college education increased at more than triple the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, government aid
to institutions of higher learning has […]

A National Service Corps Can Solve the Student Loan Crisis | Debt & Credit Blog| Free Online Tips and
Resourses

May 31, 2012 at 8:12 pm Edit

Reply
[…] mortgages and penny stocks. From 1978 to 2008, the cost of college education increased at more than
triple the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, government aid to institutions of higher learning has nosedived in
recent […]

A National Service Corps Can Solve the Student Loan Crisis |

June 1, 2012 at 3:35 am Edit

Reply
[…] mortgages and penny stocks. From 1978 to 2008, the cost of college education increased at more than
triple the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, government aid to institutions of higher learning has nosedived in
recent […]

A National Service Corps Can Solve the Student Loan Crisis | Credit.com News + Advice

June 1, 2012 at 4:04 am Edit

Reply
[…] and penny stocks. From 1978 to 2008, a cost of college preparation increasing during some-more than
triple a rate of inflation. Meanwhile, supervision assist to institutions of aloft training has nosedived in new
[…]

A National Service Corps Can Solve the Student Loan Crisis | Distance Learning Review

June 1, 2012 at 5:43 am Edit

Reply
[…] and penny stocks. From 1978 to 2008, a cost of college preparation increasing during some-more than
triple a rate of inflation. Meanwhile, supervision assist to institutions of aloft training has nosedived in new
[…]

An Idea That Could Solve the Student Loan Crisis | College Loans Advice

June 1, 2012 at 5:08 pm Edit

Reply
[…] mortgages and penny stocks. From 1978 to 2008, the cost of college education increased at more than
triple the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, government aid to institutions of higher learning has nosedived in
recent […]

How to Solve Student Loan Crisis | Top Current Event News

June 2, 2012 at 11:18 am Edit

Reply
[…] mortgages and penny stocks. From 1978 to 2008, the cost of college education increased at more than
triple the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, government aid to institutions of higher learning has nosedived in
recent […]

How to Solve Student Loan Crisis - P501 NEWS - USA | P501 NEWS – USA

June 2, 2012 at 3:52 pm Edit

Reply
I hope you will pardon my lack of cyber-savvy here: I came across your blog and would like to cite your
statement about college inflation as opposed to regular inflation for a paper. The name at the top right of
your blog (at least on this page) is John Uebersax, Ph.D. Would it be possible for you to tell me the most
appropriate way to cite this information? (I will use the given name if it is correct for this material; otherwise,
I will need to cite per APA standards for web content without a named author.)

Thank you so much for your help! (I am arguing for the benefit of high school programs that provide career
tracks or the opportunity to transition into a career and NOT college if that is not what the student needs.)

Thank you again,

Prudence
noguiltnofear

August 22, 2012 at 2:59 pm Edit

Reply
What this chart doesn’t show is where all the extra money we pay for medical, and tuition costs went. To the
top 1%.

h p://stateofworkingamerica.org/who-gains/#/?start=1978&end=2008

Jerry Hirsch

September 15, 2012 at 7:11 am Edit

Reply
[…] h ps://satyagraha.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/college-tuition-hyperinflation/ […]

Minimum Wage in the US | complexfacts

January 31, 2014 at 11:37 pm Edit

Reply
[…] measuring sticks, it is too clear that college tuition is rising at a dizzying pace. A WordPress article
breaks down all the numbers of college tuition and inflation, and the results are unse ling. […]

The Dangerous Rise of College Tuition, and Why It’s Worse Than You Think | tronzervations

October 26, 2015 at 12:06 am Edit

Reply
[…] inequality, imperialistic foreign policy, growing inflation that outpaces minimum-wage growth,
increasing college tuition, higher medical costs, increased incarceration under both parties. This is not a
surprise […]

“Vote Blue No Ma er Who!”: How Party Mantras Are Destructive to Our Democracy – The Regulator Post

March 31, 2016 at 9:52 pm Edit

Reply

Blog at WordPress.com.