WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 — Tuition and other costs at public and private universities rose faster than inflation this year, the College Board said in a report released Tuesday. But the increases were more measured than in recent years.
In the report, the board also found that in the past five years, tuition and fees at public institutions rose more than at any other time in the past 30, increasing by 35 percent to $5,836 this academic year. Tuition and fees at private four-year colleges increased by 11 percent over the same period, though the average price of attending a private institution is $22,218.
“Neither student aid funds nor family incomes are keeping pace with college prices,” Gaston Caperton, president of the board, said at a news conference. “This is a serious problem that must be addressed.”
The tuition and fees figures in the report are the so-called sticker prices, which do not reflect discounts students receive in the form of grant aid and tax benefits. Such aid reached about $9,000 at private four-year institutions, $3,100 at public ones and $2,200 at two-year institutions, the report said.
Although many students do not pay the sticker price, the cost of attending public and private universities has consistently outstripped the rate of inflation. Last year, the Consumer Price Index, a standard measure of changes in the cost of goods and services, rose by 3.4 percent. Tuition, fees, room and board have increased this year by more than 5.5 percent at both public and private four-year institutions.
The price increases at public universities are largely the result of declining federal and state support, the report said.
Margaret Spellings, secretary of education, said in a statement that the report “underscores the need to make colleges and universities more accountable for results and at the same time increase need-based aid.”
Because of cost increases, students and their families are increasingly turning to loans. Private loans, which are not guaranteed by the federal government, generally have less favorable terms than federal loans, but are the fastest-growing option for financing higher education. Last year they totaled more than $17 billion.
At the same time, the average Pell grant, the federal government’s grant to the neediest students, declined last year for the first time in 10 years, falling to $2,354 a year. Sandy Baum, senior policy analyst at the College Board and a professor of economics at Skidmore College in New York, said the decline resulted from a change in the formula for calculating Pell grant awards.
“Grant aid has failed to keep pace with the posted tuition charges,” Robert Shireman, executive director of the Project on Student Debt, which is financed primarily by the Pew Charitable Trusts, said in a statement in response to the College Board report. “Income for most American families has stagnated, leaving students and their parents with little choice but to turn to loans.”
The College Board report, which is compiled annually, drew on a survey of 2,677 public and private nonprofit institutions, as well as data from government agencies and other organizations, like the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs. The survey was sent out in October 2005, and collected by August this year.
In the current academic year, the average cost of tuition, fees, and room and board at public four-year universities, attended by about 35 percent of undergraduates, was $12,796, up 5.6 percent from $12,115 last year, according to the report. At private four-year colleges and universities, attended by 16 percent of undergraduates, those costs were far greater: $30,367, up 5.7 percent from last year.
There are not enough data to measure room and board costs at two-year public institutions, attended by 41 percent of undergraduates, but tuition and fees rose 4.2 percent to $2,272, up from $2,182 last year.
Asked to predict future changes in tuition, Ms. Baum told reporters, “We predict that it will go up, not down.”
