Don’t just take my word for it.  Two new online calculators show a) how state support of higher education as a proportion of universities’ budgets has plummeted, and b) how recent policies at the federal, state, and institutional level have combined to increase poor students’ costs in relative and even absolute terms compared to rich students.  In either one, you can look up hundreds of institutions.  BGSU my august institution for some reason isn’t on the first one, but it is one the student cost tracker one, and the results are shameful.  Between the 2008-2009 year and the 2011-2012 year, net price in inflation-adjusted dollars for poor students (defined as family income less than $30k) went from $10,765 to $13,966; that’s an increase of $3,201, or nearly 30%.  For rich students (defined as family income over $110K), net price barely budged, rising from $18,817 to $19,236, an increase of $419, or a smidgen above 2%.  Some of these are beyond the scope of BGSU my august institution’s ability to address.  But not scholarships.

Whatcha thinkin'?

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