Holy Family School

Starting next year, for-profit schools, including some of the nation’s biggest online colleges–like the University of Phoenix, Kaplan University, and Strayer University–will have to provide graduation rate and job placement figures to new students and applicants, the Department of Education has ordered. That’s a sample of more than a dozen reforms the government will impose on for-profit schools beginning July 1, 2011. Students will now be able to make more informed decisions, the Department says. “These new rules will help ensure that students are getting from schools what they pay for: solid preparation for a good job,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in an Oct. 28 press release.

[Online programs have respect to gain among employers.]

The regulations were announced amid scrutiny of for-profit schools from the Senate Health, Labor and Pensions Committee, a damning report from the Government Accountability Office, and investigations into abuse of taxpayer funded loan money by state attorneys general. In October, for instance, Oregon’s treasurer and attorney general sued Apollo Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix, claiming that the school was eager to boost profits with little regard for its students. A motion filed in federal court claims that the school “concocted a scheme to fraudulently inflate revenues and boost profitability by exploiting well-intentioned and often lower-income students, including veterans of the U.S. armed forces, who were hoping to improve their qualifications and employment prospects,” adding that “students often withdrew early or failed to complete degree programs.”

The firm dismisses the claims and plans to fight the suit. “Apollo Group takes its disclosure obligations very seriously and intends to defend this lawsuit vigorously,” company spokesman Manny Rivera said in a written statement. “Apollo Group is a leader in enhancing the student experience, expanding student protections and working to help students succeed in completing their degree programs.”

[Learn more about online education.]

Last week, the office of Florida’s attorney general also announced that it launched an investigation into the for-profit sector. These suits come on the heels of recent legal action against for-profit schools in Texas, Ohio, and Wisconsin. “Federal scrutiny has unearthed a whole set of questionable practices that conscientious AGs across the country start wondering ‘what’s happening in my state?’” says Christine Lindstrom, higher education program director at the nonprofit Public Interest Research Group. “It makes absolute sense that they’re looking into these programs.”

Deanne Loonin, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, works regularly with students–including several that enrolled online–at for-profit schools who have amassed seemingly insurmountable debt and has heard first hand of the dubious practices alleged by federal and state regulators. While she can’t mention specifics due to confidentiality agreements, she says it’s common for poorer people with limited or no Internet access at home to be persuaded to sign up for an online programs, hoping to rely on libraries to complete their coursework. Once they realize they can’t fulfill the time requirements because of their limited access or that the material is simply too advanced for them, they complain to the school or try to pull out altogether. She claims they’re typically met with limited feedback–almost all of which is intended to keep them enrolled in online programs as they amass more loan debt. “They’re told, ‘don’t worry about it. We’ll figure things out,’” she says. “It’s hard to beat all of these problems, even for people who recognize there’s a problem.”

[Learn more before you enroll in an online program.]

Though the new Department of Education regulations have been put in place to help prevent just what Loonin describes, a more significant battle looms on the horizon. Regulations, which will be based on data, will judge an institution’s ability to prepare students for jobs comparable to the cost of their education, have yet to be finalized. They will target so-called “workforce programs” which include for-profit schools, community colleges, and some state universities. If schools’ students are unable to meet adequate loan debt, loan repayment, and career earnings thresholds, the institutions could be denied federal funding, which supplies a vast majority of revenue at most for-profit online programs. The rules are intended to weed out schools that don’t prepare students for their working lives, which, in theory, would benefit students and perhaps shut the doors of several institutions not up to par. Given the severity of the regulatory threat, the industry is expected to put up a fight, experts say.

Rivera, of Apollo, refuses to speak for the sector regarding the potential for a lawsuit, but Lindstrom at PIRG believes litigation will be inevitable–possibly on the grounds that the new rules unfairly discriminate against the already much-maligned sector. “We absolutely anticipate that as soon as the final rules come out the Department of Education will be met with a lawsuit,” Lindstrom says. “The sector will sue.”

Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of Best Colleges.

Starting next year, for-profit schools, including some of the nation’s biggest online colleges–like the University of Phoenix, Kaplan University, and Strayer University–will have to provide graduation rate and job placement figures to new students and applicants, the Department of Education has ordered. That’s a sample of more than a dozen reforms the government will impose on for-profit schools beginning July 1, 2011. Students will now be able to make more informed decisions, the Department says. “These new rules will help ensure that students are getting from schools what they pay for: solid preparation for a good job,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in an Oct. 28 press release.

[Online programs have respect to gain among employers.]

The regulations were announced amid scrutiny of for-profit schools from the Senate Health, Labor and Pensions Committee, a damning report from the Government Accountability Office, and investigations into abuse of taxpayer funded loan money by state attorneys general. In October, for instance, Oregon’s treasurer and attorney general sued Apollo Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix, claiming that the school was eager to boost profits with little regard for its students. A motion filed in federal court claims that the school “concocted a scheme to fraudulently inflate revenues and boost profitability by exploiting well-intentioned and often lower-income students, including veterans of the U.S. armed forces, who were hoping to improve their qualifications and employment prospects,” adding that “students often withdrew early or failed to complete degree programs.”

The firm dismisses the claims and plans to fight the suit. “Apollo Group takes its disclosure obligations very seriously and intends to defend this lawsuit vigorously,” company spokesman Manny Rivera said in a written statement. “Apollo Group is a leader in enhancing the student experience, expanding student protections and working to help students succeed in completing their degree programs.”

[Learn more about online education.]

Last week, the office of Florida’s attorney general also announced that it launched an investigation into the for-profit sector. These suits come on the heels of recent legal action against for-profit schools in Texas, Ohio, and Wisconsin. “Federal scrutiny has unearthed a whole set of questionable practices that conscientious AGs across the country start wondering ‘what’s happening in my state?’” says Christine Lindstrom, higher education program director at the nonprofit Public Interest Research Group. “It makes absolute sense that they’re looking into these programs.”

Deanne Loonin, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, works regularly with students–including several that enrolled online–at for-profit schools who have amassed seemingly insurmountable debt and has heard first hand of the dubious practices alleged by federal and state regulators. While she can’t mention specifics due to confidentiality agreements, she says it’s common for poorer people with limited or no Internet access at home to be persuaded to sign up for an online programs, hoping to rely on libraries to complete their coursework. Once they realize they can’t fulfill the time requirements because of their limited access or that the material is simply too advanced for them, they complain to the school or try to pull out altogether. She claims they’re typically met with limited feedback–almost all of which is intended to keep them enrolled in online programs as they amass more loan debt. “They’re told, ‘don’t worry about it. We’ll figure things out,’” she says. “It’s hard to beat all of these problems, even for people who recognize there’s a problem.”

[Learn more before you enroll in an online program.]

Though the new Department of Education regulations have been put in place to help prevent just what Loonin describes, a more significant battle looms on the horizon. Regulations, which will be based on data, will judge an institution’s ability to prepare students for jobs comparable to the cost of their education, have yet to be finalized. They will target so-called “workforce programs” which include for-profit schools, community colleges, and some state universities. If schools’ students are unable to meet adequate loan debt, loan repayment, and career earnings thresholds, the institutions could be denied federal funding, which supplies a vast majority of revenue at most for-profit online programs. The rules are intended to weed out schools that don’t prepare students for their working lives, which, in theory, would benefit students and perhaps shut the doors of several institutions not up to par. Given the severity of the regulatory threat, the industry is expected to put up a fight, experts say.

Rivera, of Apollo, refuses to speak for the sector regarding the potential for a lawsuit, but Lindstrom at PIRG believes litigation will be inevitable–possibly on the grounds that the new rules unfairly discriminate against the already much-maligned sector. “We absolutely anticipate that as soon as the final rules come out the Department of Education will be met with a lawsuit,” Lindstrom says. “The sector will sue.”

Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of Best Colleges.

DENVER – A judge has set a trial date for a man accused of shooting and wounding two Colorado eighth-graders outside their middle school and is considering a request from prosecutors to order a second mental evaluation for the man.

A Jefferson County judge on Monday scheduled a March 2011 trial for Bruco (BROO’-so) Strong Eagle Eastwood, who faces 15 charges, including attempted first-degree murder. The judge says he won’t order a second mental health evaluation for now, but will make a final ruling later.

Eastwood pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Authorities say teachers tackled and restrained Eastwood until deputies arrived at Deer Creek Middle School in south suburban Denver on Feb. 23.

STAMFORD, Conn. – More opportunities for jobs and education reform will help jumpstart Connecticuts urban areas, the state’s gubernatorial candidates told an audience Friday night.

In one of their last public forums before next weeks election, Democrat Dan Malloy, Republican Tom Foley and independent candidate Tom Marsh promised a crowd of more than 250 in the auditorium of Stamford High School that the next governor will help spearhead state efforts to add more support for the states minority and poor residents.

The event was part of the annual convention of the Connecticut NAACP.

The three candidates are vying to replace Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who is retiring.

“Elections have consequences and this election may have more consequences then any other in our lifetime,” said Malloy, who is a former mayor of Stamford.

Foley, a Greenwich businessman, said he believes crime rates and school dropout rates will decrease if the next governor can help bring in more jobs and focus on improving education.

He said the state should work more closely with city law enforcement officials to aid in crime reduction efforts and advocated for more youth mentoring programs.

“We need to support parents in the household because in a lot of minority communities there are stresses that aren’t in any other households,” Foley said. “We need to have the programs where we can support young people and provide the type of nurturing experiences that they may not be getting in their households.”

Malloy said he would look into providing more mental health, drug and alcohol treatment programs for prison inmates and mentioned he would work to offer more support services for citizens transitioning from incarceration.

He also said he plans to expand access to pre-kindergarten, saying it was paramount in helping close the states achievement gap.

“We have to change our course when it comes to education,” he said. “The reality is people do not choose to fail to send their children to an early childhood learning experience, they only miss that opportunity because they can’t afford it.”

Marsh, first selectman of Chester, advocated that parents should be more involved in their children’s education but also said the state has to do a better job of giving them support.

“We need to make sure that every parent has the tools that are necessarily to start with their young and have the opportunity for a fair playing field so that their children can grow up and be nurtured and be educated and not be afraid on the streets,” he said.

Malloy said he would use his past experience as Stamford mayor to help bring more issues affecting the states urban population to light.

“I understand that we have to bring back our 19 urban communities in this state, if we are to move forward,” he said.

Foley, who described himself as a problem solver, told the audience that he would lessen state spending and not raise taxes to help close the states multi-billion dollar state budget deficit.

Marsh urged the audience to hold public officials more accountable and said they have to help the government spark change.

“Each and every one of us has to hold our legislators accountable, hold our elected officials accountable,” Marsh said. “If you don’t get out there and make your voice heard, nothing is going to change,” he said.

Students and families already struggling in a tough U.S. economy got little relief from swelling college costs this year, with the published prices of tuition and fees continuing their upward climb, according to a College Board report released today. The news isn’t all bad, though, with the financial blow to families somewhat softened this year by record increases in federal grant aid, said the College Board, a nonprofit membership association of colleges and high schools.

At four-year private colleges in the U.S. , the average tuition rose to $27,293, a 4.5 percent increase over last year. The annual tuition hike was the highest at four-year public colleges, which continued to be slammed by state budget cuts. Nearly 20 percent of students at public four-year colleges and universities attended schools that increased their sticker prices this fall by 12 percent or more, the College Board said. Annual tuition and fees for in-state students at public universities grew 7.9
percent for the 2010-11 academic year, raising the average cost of attendance $555 to $7,605.

This year’s tuition increase for U.S. public colleges is more than a full percentage point higher than last year’s increase (6.5 percent). That’s a trend that is worrisome to Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability & Productivity, a Washington-based nonprofit.

“The report may tell you that the costs are not rising quite as much as those statistics indicate because of increased financial aid, but the reality is that the colleges are doing relatively little to adjust to the economic realities of the recession,” said Vedder in a telephone interview. “They have been too modest in their attempts to make cuts so far and, in my opinion, are doing too little too late.”

Decade>

The cost of college has been going up steadily for years, with a four-year degree from the nation’s most
expensive institutions now carrying a price tag of more than $200,000, excluding aid. But the rise in prices has been the most brutal over the last decade. Published tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities over the last decade have increased at an average rate of 5.6 percent per year beyond the rate of general inflation, the highest increase of the last three decades, according to the College Board. This year was no different, with published tuition and fees at private and public colleges and universities continuing to outpace inflation. Between July 2009 and July 2010, the Consumer Price Index increased by 1.2 percent, according to the College Board.

At the same time, college costs are far outpacing the average U.S. family’s ability to pay. In 2009, the average family income was 11 percent lower than it had been a decade earlier for families with incomes in the bottom 20 percent of incomes in the U.S. , and 5 percent lower for those in the middle 20
percent of incomes , the College Board said.

There has been a significant shift in the way public higher education is being financed as a result of state budget cuts, said Terry Hartle, a senior vice-president of the American Council on Education, in a telephone interview. There are 19.5 million students currently enrolled in higher education, about 80 percent of whom attend public institutions, he said. In the last two years, almost every state has cut funding for higher education, while at the same time enrollment in higher education has ticked up steadily, he said. This year, the federal government provided $150 billion to colleges and universities, while the states provided only $75 billion, a funding model that is different from years past, he added.

“The general approach to public higher education in the U.S. for more than a century has been low tuition to encourage all students to enroll, but what we are now starting to see is a shift to high tuition with
moderate amounts of student aid to offset high tuition for low-income students,” Hartle said. “It’s a fundamental change in the pricing strategy for public higher education and is almost entirely driven by uncertain funding levels from state governments for higher education.”

Lower>

This year’s substantial infusion of grant aid along with tax credits from the federal government did manage to soften the blow for many families when it came to paying tuition bills, effectively lowering the net price of a student’s education, said Sandy Baum, an independent policy analyst for the College Board and professor of economics at Skidmore College, in a telephone interview. The net price is what the average student pays after grants, student aid, and tax benefits are factored into her college bill, at both public and private colleges, Baum said.

Grants and tax breaks managed to lower the average net price at four-year private
institutions by $16,000, bringing the average actual cost to $11,293 at private four-year institutions, the College Board said. At four-year public colleges and universities, students on average receive about $6,100 in aid, lowering the average annual tuition to about $1,505 a year.

“Grant aid and tax benefits on average have gone up fast enough to mean that what students are really paying is going up about the rate of overall inflation,” said Baum. “Once you adjust for inflation, in all of the sectors, students are paying something less than they were paying five, 10, or even 15 years ago.”

A new federal tax credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit, part of President Obama’s stimulus legislation, has also helped make a dent in tuition bills. Families are eligible to receive a tax credit of up to $2,500. This made college more affordable for 8 million families, who on average claimed $1,700 in college tax credits in 2009, according to a report
from the Treasury Dept. released earlier this month.

Pell>

Changes to the Pell Grant program, one of the most popular need-based grant aid programs for low- and moderate-income students, have perhaps made the biggest difference for students this year, said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, an Oakland (Calif.)-based nonprofit that works to raise awareness about financial aid.

“These findings do really reinforce the crucial importance of recent and substantial Pell Grant increases for students and families who are struggling to figure out how to pay for college,” said Asher in a telephone interview. “Given the challenging economic situation, Pell Grants are going to be even more important this coming year.”

More families are eligible for the Pell Grant this fall because of an increase in the minimum amount a family is expected to pay toward the cost of college. At the same time, the
maximum federal Pell Grant students can receive increased by 16 percent, the largest one-year rise in its history, But even the maximum award only covers 34 percent of the average published tuition, fees, and room and board at public four-year colleges, and 15 percent of charges at private four-year institutions, Asher said.

“The Pell Grant makes a huge and important contribution, but it doesn’t come anywhere near to covering the full cost of going to a public four-year institution,” she said.

Schools>

Students and families are not the only ones struggling to make ends meet. With the price of college on the rise, schools hiking their tuition are under pressure to increase the financial aid packages they dole out to students. Private colleges increased institutional student aid by an average of 6.8 percent for the 2010-11 academic year, according to the National Association of Independent Colleges & Universities, a trade group
in Washington. In 2009-10, private four-year colleges awarded an average of $6,440 in grant aid to full-time enrolled students, also awarding $2,060 in aid that exceeded financial need, according to the College Board.

In some cases, the tuition increases at private colleges are not bringing the school any additional revenue, but are being siphoned directly into the school’s institutional aid budget, Baum said.

“It is really becoming a problem because schools are spending so much more on their financial aid budget, but they are not gaining extra revenue by increasing their sticker prices,” Baum said.

With prices on the rise, enrollment patterns are shifting, with a growing number of students considering two-year colleges and for-profit institutions as alternatives to four-year public and private schools, the College Board said. From fall 2000 to fall 2009, the percentage of all full-time students enrolled in for-profit institutions increased from 4
percent to 10 percent.

But even these schools are not immune to tuition increases. The College Board estimates that tuition and fees at private for-profit institutions now average $13,935, a $679 (or 5.1 percent) increase over 2009-10. At public two-year colleges, the sticker price is on average $2,713, $155 (or 6 percent) higher than last year.

Students considering for-profit colleges over private colleges shouldn’t just look at the sticker price when they are making a decision on where to attend school, Baum said. When a student factors in grant aid, the net tuition and fee prices are lower for many students attending private nonprofit colleges than for those attending for-profit institutions, the College Board said.

The majority of students heading to college today are becoming increasingly sensitive to rising college prices, forcing them to look for alternatives, whether it is community colleges or for-profit schools, said the Center for College
Affordability & Productivity’s Vedder, who is also an economics professor at Ohio University.

“As the price of the traditional product gets more expensive, students are looking for something cheaper,” Vedder said. “The people are starting to speak and we’re seeing it now in the growth of students attending lower-cost alternatives to four-year schools.”

Students and families already struggling in a tough U.S. economy got little relief from swelling college costs this year, with the published prices of tuition and fees continuing their upward climb, according to a College Board report released today. The news isn’t all bad, though, with the financial blow to families somewhat softened this year by record increases in federal grant aid, said the College Board, a nonprofit membership association of colleges and high schools.

At four-year private colleges in the U.S. , the average tuition rose to $27,293, a 4.5 percent increase over last year. The annual tuition hike was the highest at four-year public colleges, which continued to be slammed by state budget cuts. Nearly 20 percent of students at public four-year colleges and universities attended schools that increased their sticker prices this fall by 12 percent or more, the College Board said. Annual tuition and fees for in-state students at public universities grew 7.9
percent for the 2010-11 academic year, raising the average cost of attendance $555 to $7,605.

This year’s tuition increase for U.S. public colleges is more than a full percentage point higher than last year’s increase (6.5 percent). That’s a trend that is worrisome to Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability & Productivity, a Washington-based nonprofit.

“The report may tell you that the costs are not rising quite as much as those statistics indicate because of increased financial aid, but the reality is that the colleges are doing relatively little to adjust to the economic realities of the recession,” said Vedder in a telephone interview. “They have been too modest in their attempts to make cuts so far and, in my opinion, are doing too little too late.”

Decade>

The cost of college has been going up steadily for years, with a four-year degree from the nation’s most
expensive institutions now carrying a price tag of more than $200,000, excluding aid. But the rise in prices has been the most brutal over the last decade. Published tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities over the last decade have increased at an average rate of 5.6 percent per year beyond the rate of general inflation, the highest increase of the last three decades, according to the College Board. This year was no different, with published tuition and fees at private and public colleges and universities continuing to outpace inflation. Between July 2009 and July 2010, the Consumer Price Index increased by 1.2 percent, according to the College Board.

At the same time, college costs are far outpacing the average U.S. family’s ability to pay. In 2009, the average family income was 11 percent lower than it had been a decade earlier for families with incomes in the bottom 20 percent of incomes in the U.S. , and 5 percent lower for those in the middle 20
percent of incomes , the College Board said.

There has been a significant shift in the way public higher education is being financed as a result of state budget cuts, said Terry Hartle, a senior vice-president of the American Council on Education, in a telephone interview. There are 19.5 million students currently enrolled in higher education, about 80 percent of whom attend public institutions, he said. In the last two years, almost every state has cut funding for higher education, while at the same time enrollment in higher education has ticked up steadily, he said. This year, the federal government provided $150 billion to colleges and universities, while the states provided only $75 billion, a funding model that is different from years past, he added.

“The general approach to public higher education in the U.S. for more than a century has been low tuition to encourage all students to enroll, but what we are now starting to see is a shift to high tuition with
moderate amounts of student aid to offset high tuition for low-income students,” Hartle said. “It’s a fundamental change in the pricing strategy for public higher education and is almost entirely driven by uncertain funding levels from state governments for higher education.”

Lower>

This year’s substantial infusion of grant aid along with tax credits from the federal government did manage to soften the blow for many families when it came to paying tuition bills, effectively lowering the net price of a student’s education, said Sandy Baum, an independent policy analyst for the College Board and professor of economics at Skidmore College, in a telephone interview. The net price is what the average student pays after grants, student aid, and tax benefits are factored into her college bill, at both public and private colleges, Baum said.

Grants and tax breaks managed to lower the average net price at four-year private
institutions by $16,000, bringing the average actual cost to $11,293 at private four-year institutions, the College Board said. At four-year public colleges and universities, students on average receive about $6,100 in aid, lowering the average annual tuition to about $1,505 a year.

“Grant aid and tax benefits on average have gone up fast enough to mean that what students are really paying is going up about the rate of overall inflation,” said Baum. “Once you adjust for inflation, in all of the sectors, students are paying something less than they were paying five, 10, or even 15 years ago.”

A new federal tax credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit, part of President Obama’s stimulus legislation, has also helped make a dent in tuition bills. Families are eligible to receive a tax credit of up to $2,500. This made college more affordable for 8 million families, who on average claimed $1,700 in college tax credits in 2009, according to a report
from the Treasury Dept. released earlier this month.

Pell>

Changes to the Pell Grant program, one of the most popular need-based grant aid programs for low- and moderate-income students, have perhaps made the biggest difference for students this year, said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, an Oakland (Calif.)-based nonprofit that works to raise awareness about financial aid.

“These findings do really reinforce the crucial importance of recent and substantial Pell Grant increases for students and families who are struggling to figure out how to pay for college,” said Asher in a telephone interview. “Given the challenging economic situation, Pell Grants are going to be even more important this coming year.”

More families are eligible for the Pell Grant this fall because of an increase in the minimum amount a family is expected to pay toward the cost of college. At the same time, the
maximum federal Pell Grant students can receive increased by 16 percent, the largest one-year rise in its history, But even the maximum award only covers 34 percent of the average published tuition, fees, and room and board at public four-year colleges, and 15 percent of charges at private four-year institutions, Asher said.

“The Pell Grant makes a huge and important contribution, but it doesn’t come anywhere near to covering the full cost of going to a public four-year institution,” she said.

Schools>

Students and families are not the only ones struggling to make ends meet. With the price of college on the rise, schools hiking their tuition are under pressure to increase the financial aid packages they dole out to students. Private colleges increased institutional student aid by an average of 6.8 percent for the 2010-11 academic year, according to the National Association of Independent Colleges & Universities, a trade group
in Washington. In 2009-10, private four-year colleges awarded an average of $6,440 in grant aid to full-time enrolled students, also awarding $2,060 in aid that exceeded financial need, according to the College Board.

In some cases, the tuition increases at private colleges are not bringing the school any additional revenue, but are being siphoned directly into the school’s institutional aid budget, Baum said.

“It is really becoming a problem because schools are spending so much more on their financial aid budget, but they are not gaining extra revenue by increasing their sticker prices,” Baum said.

With prices on the rise, enrollment patterns are shifting, with a growing number of students considering two-year colleges and for-profit institutions as alternatives to four-year public and private schools, the College Board said. From fall 2000 to fall 2009, the percentage of all full-time students enrolled in for-profit institutions increased from 4
percent to 10 percent.

But even these schools are not immune to tuition increases. The College Board estimates that tuition and fees at private for-profit institutions now average $13,935, a $679 (or 5.1 percent) increase over 2009-10. At public two-year colleges, the sticker price is on average $2,713, $155 (or 6 percent) higher than last year.

Students considering for-profit colleges over private colleges shouldn’t just look at the sticker price when they are making a decision on where to attend school, Baum said. When a student factors in grant aid, the net tuition and fee prices are lower for many students attending private nonprofit colleges than for those attending for-profit institutions, the College Board said.

The majority of students heading to college today are becoming increasingly sensitive to rising college prices, forcing them to look for alternatives, whether it is community colleges or for-profit schools, said the Center for College
Affordability & Productivity’s Vedder, who is also an economics professor at Ohio University.

“As the price of the traditional product gets more expensive, students are looking for something cheaper,” Vedder said. “The people are starting to speak and we’re seeing it now in the growth of students attending lower-cost alternatives to four-year schools.”

Tuition at public college and universities continued its steep upward climb this year, rising an average of nearly 8 percent at four-year institutions.

Thanks to federal stimulus funds to the states and a massive influx of federal student aid, students’ wallets didn’t feel such a huge pinch. But the recession is taking its toll.

It’s harder for families to find the means to pay for college, of course. But it’s also becoming increasingly difficult in hard-hit states for campuses to shield students from the effects of budget cuts – everything from bigger classes to the elimination of entire academic programs.

Monitor List: Tired of student loans? These schools will leave you with little debt.

“You would like to think that schools were just quickly finding ways to cut costs without affecting educational quality, but that’s certainly not the case,” says Sandy Baum, an independent analyst for The College Board and co-author of its new report, “Trends in College Pricing 2010.”

“We have to figure out a way to educate a lot more students in a cost-effective way without having either the states or the federal government or the families go broke, and that’s a long-term project.â€

Just over one-third of American undergraduates attend public four-year colleges and universities, where published tuition and fees now average about $7,600 for in-state students, up 7.9 percent over last year, according to the annual report. Total costs, including living expenses, run about $16,000, up about 6 percent.

Where students live and what income level they have has a lot to do with the price they pay for a given college. After grant aid and tax benefits, the average “net priceâ€

That number would be a lot higher if it weren’t for federal aid. In just one year, Pell Grants to low- and moderate-income students increased by 58 percent, and veterans’ grant aid increased by 131 percent, according to another College Board report released Thursday, Trends in Student Aid.

Yet about a third of college students still pay the full published price for tuition, and they’ve been hit with significant increases year after year. Colleges typically have to spend even more than that to cover the costs of educating students, Ms. Baum says.

Total state spending on higher education has increased about 8 percent in the past decade, but enrollments have risen dramatically – 33 percent at public colleges and universities. So per-student state spending dropped by 5 percent in 2009-10 and 9 percent in 2008-09.

Louisiana’s public colleges and universities have to cut about $35 million from their mid-year budgets, after already facing cuts last year. They’re shortening work weeks, laying off staff, and waiting for the shoe to drop about how much next year’s budget will be squeezed.

Faculty morale is low and “nobody knows how we will be able to deliver a high-quality education,” says Kevin Cope, president of the Faculty Senate at Louisiana State in Baton Rouge. The campus is preparing for cuts next year in the range of 23 to 35 percent.

“Already, a certain number of courses have been canceled and curricula eliminated,” Mr. Cope says of the flagship campus. Fourteen foreign language faculty will not have their contracts renewed, for instance, which means the loss of instruction in such major languages as Japanese and Portuguese.

In Missouri, the state is reviewing academic programs, asking campuses to consider consolidating or eliminating those that produce a very low number of degrees each year.

At the University of Missouri in Columbia, that means 75 programs, many of them at the graduate level, are being scrutinized for possible cuts. They range from exercise physiology to computer engineering. The review is part of a broader agenda by Gov. Jay Nixon (D) to make higher education more cost-effective as enrollments rise.

“In some respects [that kind of review taking place on many campuses] is one of the silver linings in a recession – that people are forced to make choices … and then when you emerge from a rocky period, you’re stronger,” says Paul Lingenfelter, president of the State Higher Education Executive Officers in Boulder, Colo.

But the larger issue of pent-up demand for affordable higher education still looms, he says. “Somehow we’ve got to figure out a way to get both the provision of education and the financing of education in sync with the needs of students and the needs of the economy.â€