Your local newspaper probably includes a headline today that reads something like this one in The New York Times: Health Care Costs Rise Twice as Much as Inflation.  While that fact is concerning on its own, even more worrisome to current and future college parents is the fact college tuition and fees are rising at nearly double the rate of health-care costs or, all told, four times the rate of inflation.  This generation-long increase in the price of college has outstripped price increases in other sectors of the economy and that is very troubling.

At College Parents of America, we are committed to actions that can help to relieve the cost of college for students and their families.  For instance, we encourage colleges and universities to adopt more business-like practices, such as outsourcing non-academic functions, in order to hold down cost increases.  Far too often a school’s first urge is to look at ways to raise revenue from their customers (us) when faced with a budget shortfall.  We believe that colleges and universities should also look at expenses generated by their internal constituencies (them) so that a better balance is struck between the ability to teach and the ability to pay.

As you have visited colleges and universities, either as a current or prospective parent, no doubt you have observed some smart - and not-so-smart - ways that schools are handling their public trust when it comes to money.  Please share your observations with your peers by clicking on the Comments link.  Thank you for your interest.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 at 5:10 pm and is filed under College, High School, Incoming Freshman, College Costs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.