Tuition at public colleges rises 4.8%

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Tuition hikes, stagnant federal aid and increases in other expenses have pushed public college costs to new heights yet again this year, according to a College Board report out Wednesday. To attend an in-state public college for the 2012-13 academic year, the average overall cost (or "sticker price") for students who don't receive any financial aid rose 3.8% to a record $22,261, according to the report.

Tuition accounted for about half of that increase. Public university tuition and fees alone rose 4.8% to $8,655. In addition, higher dorm, cafeteria, books and other expenses added significantly to the overall increase. While about two-thirds of full-time students receive grants or federal tax breaks, many are likely to have to foot more of the bill themselves this year. The College Board's economists estimate that financial aid budgets stayed flat, leaving students less money to cover rising college costs.

As a result, the net price (the cost after scholarships, grants and federal tax benefits) that in-state students at public colleges will pay this year rose 4.6% to an average of $16,510.

That's more than twice the rate of inflation, which rose just 2% over the last 12 months.

I'm voting for Rob Steele for the University of Michigan board of regents. Steele is the tea partier who forced John Dingell into the fight of his political life.

Steele says he will work to end the waste of taxpayer dollars on crap like this.

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A simple problem, really. All it takes is some state legislator to say that “the purpose of state funded higher education is so that graduates can get better jobs than if they only have a high school education.”

Based on this as an axiom, they then produce a list of college majors offered at the state universities, the number of graduates from those majors, and the number of graduates placed *in their job field* within six months after graduation. (Not just all employment, which is deceptive, since cooking french fries is not major related.)

At the top of the list are nursing, teaching, and criminal justice majors. At the bottom of the list are ethnic studies, basket weaving, and other such nonsense.

And then this state legislator says, “Why is the state paying universities to teach, and students to study, subjects that do not profit students, and in fact, may be counterproductive by impoverishing students with student loans?”

Granted, in all fairness, if students want to study esoteric subjects *paying for them entirely on their own*, then they should be able to take such “vanity” majors.

Otherwise, the universities should be directed to discontinue such egregious wastes of the taxpayers money.

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