In Many States, Overall Cost of Higher Education Decreasing

In the College Board's latest breakdown of tuition costs for students, researchers have found that while the cost of tuition is on the upswing for students, the combination of grants and loans they receive has actually brought their out-of-pocket costs down.  Total grant aid increased by about 22 percent in 2009-2010, with much of the increase due to Federal Pell grants and Veterans' Benefits.

But when it comes to higher education as a whole, even when counting federal stimulus spending, Pennsylvania ranked 6th lowest in state tax appropriations for higher education per $1,000 in personal income.  In other words, only five other states used a smaller percentage of taxes based on income to pay for higher education.  On average in the United States, $6.60 is appropriated per $1,000 of personal income for higher education.  In Pennsylvania, that number is just a little over $4.00.

To learn more about the report, you can find it at http://advocacy.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/2010_Trends_College_Pricing_Final_Web.pdf.  Also, please take a look at our accompanying blog post on funding for nontraditional students.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Overlooked and Undercounted: Struggling to Make Ends Meet in Pennsylvania

Mini-Budget Update-Supporting the American Community Survey

Overlooked and Undercounted in the Media (#media)