As student loan debt reaches record levels, there's finally some good news about the cost of college

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July 24, 2017 10:31 PM

Last year, tuition costs grew at the slowest pace in decades.

This may be a good sign.

College affordability has become the preeminent issue in higher education, as student-debt figures have hit staggering levels.

ballooning, last year tuition costs grew at the slowest pace in decades, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Labor Department data show tuition at college and graduate school increased 1.9% for the year ended June 2017 — on par with the rate of inflation. From 1990 through 2016, the average increase was 6% a year — more than double the rate of inflation, according to the The Journal.

The factors that contribute to growing tuition prices are manifold.

In 1980, the US enrollment was 53% (as a percentage of the total population of students who graduated within the last five years). In 2012 it was 94%.
Growing college enrollment necessitates the hiring of more administrative staff, which can be costly
An increased demand for seats in a college class also allows schools to increase tuition.

But that demand diminished in the face of increasing supply in recent years, as two- and four-year colleges increased 33% between 1990 and 2012, according to The Journal. At the same time, fewer people are enrolling in college as the job market improves.

Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal »

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