• Tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities averaged $487 more this academic year than last year: $5,132 vs. $4,645, a 10.5 percent increase, according to the nonprofit College Board.
At four-year private institutions, tuition and fees averaged $1,132 more than a year ago: $20,082 vs. $18,950, a 6 percent increase.
• While the highest-priced schools get the most media attention, less than one half of 1 percent of all full-time undergraduates attend campuses that charged $30,000 or more in 2003-04.
The following chart shows the distribution of students at these schools by tuition and fees charged:
• Johns Hopkins University cost an undergraduate $21,820 in 1990-91 -- $15,000 of that in tuition. In 1995-96, the total cost was $28,250 -- $19,750 in tuition. This year, the total package is $41,306 -- $30,140 in tuition.
Next year, the entire package will be about $44,000, said Ellen Frishberg, director of Student Financial Services. "I have two teenagers," she said, "and I think, 'Oh my God, what's it going to be like when they get to college?' "
• Community colleges, with two-year programs, cost far less than four-year colleges. Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, N.Y., for instance, charges annual tuition of $2,300. It estimates that a student can save more than $50,000 by attending Hudson Valley and then transferring to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, instead of spending four years at Rensselaer.
• State support for public universities has been declining. For example, the University of Virginia, which received nearly a third of its budget from the state legislature in 1987, received about 8 percent of its $1.7 billion budget from state tax dollars this year. When the university was chartered in 1819, it received $15,000 from the state. Its founder, Thomas Jefferson, raised $40,000 more.
• Pace University in New York is one of a small but growing number of schools that guarantee fixed tuition. First-year students this year are paying $30,960 for tuition, room and board and fees, and they will pay the same for three more years.
