Surprise! It’s costing students even more to attend private college this year.
Tuition and fees at private colleges and universities edged 3.9 percent higher for the 2012-13 academic year, according to a survey of 445 private, nonprofit schools conducted by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
Tuition has been on the rise ever since the association first began collecting data in 1972. But this year’s increase is the smallest on record, and it’s the first time that it has been less than 4 percent, according to NAICU, which represents 960 private colleges and universities.
This is also the fourth year in a row that the average tuition hike has been below pre-recession levels. Increases ran at an average 5.7 percent per year for the 10years prior to the 2009-10 academic year, but rates have remained in the mid-4 percent range since.
Meanwhile, private colleges expanded their student aid budgets by an average 6.2 percent this year, following a 7 percent increase last year.
In addition to boosting financial aid, some schools bucked the tuition-hiking trend, with Cabrini College in Pennsylvania cutting tuition by 12.5 percent for 2012-13 and the University of Charleston in West Virginia slashing costs by 22 percent. Other schools are taking more unconventional measures. Some are freezing tuition, offering three-year degree programs or giving students four-year graduation guarantees.
