THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 26, 1996 TAG: 9609260290
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
LENGTH: 100 lines
If tuition keeps going up, Farouk Abdallah says, his days at Brooklyn College will be over. The school's $3,200 yearly tuition already takes up ``every penny that I make,'' he says.
And Alice Greene of Lake Oswego, Ore., who has a daughter in a Virginia private college and a son planning to go next year, says she and her husband may have to sell one of their two cars or move to a smaller home to pay the tuition.
The soaring cost of attending college has moderated in recent years, but tuition and room and board at private and public universities keep going up at rates exceeding inflation. Many students and their families keep feeling the pinch.
According to a study released Wednesday by the College Board, four-year public colleges and universities this year boosted tuition on average by 6 percent for undergraduates. That compares with double-digit annual increases between 1991 and 1993.
At four-year private schools, students are paying about 5 percent more in tuition and fees this year compared with a year ago, the survey said. That's the smallest increase in a decade, but it's still higher than inflation, which is hovering at 3 percent.
Room and board also went up an average of 6 percent to $4,152 at four-year public colleges; and 4 percent to $5,361 at private schools.
The College Board, an association of 2,800 colleges, found that in-state tuition and fees, not counting room and board, now average $2,811 at public four-year colleges and $12,823 at private schools. The average cost of two-year schools was about half that amount per year.
Virginia's average amount for tuition and fees exceeds the national total, even though charges barely increased across the state in the past year.
Average annual tuition and fees for in-state undergraduates at four-year state-supported schools went up 1.3 percent this fall, from $3,949 to $4,002, according to the State Council of Higher Education.
Room and board costs statewide increased 2.6 percent, to $4,384 a year, at the public colleges. The state council does not track average charges at private colleges.
Virginia's cost increases were held down by a tuition freeze approved earlier this year by Gov. George F. Allen and the General Assembly. The freeze was designed to help counteract double-digit tuition-and-fee increases approved by colleges earlier this decade to make up for state budget cuts. The freeze, which will extend through the 1997-98 year, does not cover charges other than tuition, such as mandatory fees or room and board.
``The combination of Virginia's action (the freeze) and the increases in other states will help to lower Virginia's tuition relative to other states,'' Gordon K. Davies, director of the state council, said Wednesday. ``Our objective clearly is to try to get tuition back to being a reasonable charge to parents and students, who obviously have felt a lot of stress in the last few years.''
The council predicted during the summer that the freeze would help Virginia fall from the eighth to the 11th most expensive state for tuition at major research universities.
Donald Stewart, president of the College Board, said that college tuition is daunting to many but that too much focus is being put on the highest-priced schools. Three of every four students pay less than $6,000, and a majority pay less than $4,000 a year, he said, while only 4.3 percent of undergraduates pay $20,000 or more a year.
Financial aid - usually a package of loans and in some cases outright grants - reduces the cost for many students, particularly those in expensive private schools.
The College Board's annual report said $50.3 billion in aid was available last year from federal, state and school sources - up $3.3 billion from 1994-95. Most of the money was in loans, not grants.
David Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, says private schools are trying to cut expenses and make their schools more affordable.
Some schools have cut tuition or promised not to raise it more than the inflation rate. Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio, gained attention when it slashed tuition by 29 percent for entering freshmen this fall.
Bob Massa, dean of enrollment at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, doesn't foresee scores of private schools following Muskingum's lead. But he adds, ``There is a heightened awareness that the price is beyond the means of the average family.''
That's something Abdallah, the student in New York, and Greene, the mother in Oregon, know all too well.
``Every penny that I make goes to my tuition,'' says Abdallah, 21, who has worked as a drugstore sales clerk and cashier, a short order cook and delivery man to pay his $1,600-a-semester tuition. ``If they raise tuition any more, I'm out of school.''
Greene and her husband have a daughter who attends Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, and next year her son plans to go to Bowdoin College, a private liberal arts school in Brunswick, Maine. ``Between the two of them, we're talking $50,000 a year and that's not counting transportation and phone bills,'' said Greene. The added costs will lead to lifestyle changes for her and her husband, a lawyer, she says. For one thing, she says, she is thinking of returning to work - as a teacher. MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by staff writer Phil Walzer
and The Associated Press. ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC
THE COST OF COLLEGE
AP
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
KEYWORDS: COLLEGE TUITION by CNB