Tuition increases are almost universally seen as somewhat unfortunate. Even most universities are reluctant to admit they’re raising tuition with anything other than regret.
According to one agency, however, tuition hikes aren’t really a problem, because people keep going to college. This is, well, an odd way to look at the problem. Reuters:
Fitch Ratings sees that the increase in cost of attendance at
U.S. colleges and universities, which began during the mid-1990s and accelerated through the end of the past decade, has not yet had a meaningful impact on enrollment at most institutions. The lack of a negative enrollment trend, we believe, underscores fundamentally robust societal demand for post-secondary education and the nondiscretionary nature of a college degree. Both dynamics, in our view, need to be considered by investors in higher education bonds when analyzing the sustainability of tuition levels and annual rates of increase in student charges.
Despite these seemingly staggering increases in cost, The College Board data indicate that enrollment nationally in public and private institutions has increased sharply since 1996. The increase at public two-year institutions was 136%. Public four-year colleges and universities grew by 133%. And private four-year enrollment rose by 142%.
What Fitch is apparently uninteresting in addressing, however, is whether or not all of these new students can actually afford to attend college at these higher rates.
The debt levels that such students have now threaten to destroy their finances. The fact that they keep enrolling might show a “fundamentally robust societal demand for postsecondary education” but that’s maybe not the thing to worry about.
People keep enrolling because they can’t generally obtain professional jobs without college. But that’s doesn’t mean tuition hikes are causing no problem; they’re just causing no problem for the universities. They’re causing a great big problem for graduates.
