Good news is on the way for students who want to go to college. It appears as though the price hikes in college tuition are finally slowing. By now you have heard likely heard from many sources that America has a student debt crisis. It has seemed unfair, odd, and frankly frustrating that the cost of a college or university education has risen much more than real inflation through the years. It might even be easy to argue that universities should be stripped of their non-profit status because education is truly a big business.

New data from the College Board is showing that the price of a university education is finally not rising so fast. Be advised that the College Board’s key findings and trends report showed that the price of a college education is still rising but not by such a sharp amount as you have seen in the last two decades. The report also showed that Pell Grant expenditures and student borrowing both fell.

The current price gain is listed as only a 2.9% gain, or 0.9% if you adjust for inflation. The 2.9% increase in published tuition and fees for in-state students was taken from public four-year colleges from the years 2012-2013 versus 2013-2014.

Here is where the price gain will really stand out. This was called the smallest one-year increase since all the way back to 1975-76. They did not even have the internet back then. Another figure thrown out was that the 0.9% inflation-adjusted price was the smallest adjusted increase going back to the 2000-01 college year.

Private colleges had a smaller gain as well, but these were still up by 3.8%. There was a 3.5% increase for public two-year colleges, which was called “typical of increases over the long run” but was still called the smallest gain since the 2007-08 college year.

The study said,

“Between 2007-08 and 2010-11, the net prices paid by many students were held down by large increases in grant aid and tax benefits, particularly from the federal government, even though published prices were increasing rapidly over the same period. However, between 2010-11 and 2012-13, federal grant aid declined. While grants per student from other sources increased, net prices rose at a time when family incomes have not recovered.”

About 60% of students earnings a bachelor’s degree in 2011-12 graduated with debt. That average debt came to about $26,500. In 2013, some 1.6 million federal Direct Loan borrowers were shown to be in repayment plans that limit their payments to a specified percentage of their incomes. Also over the last ten years, the total number of federal undergraduate and graduate student loan borrowers rose by a whopping 69%.

24/7 Wall St. has covered this topic of the expense of college and many career aspects in-depth. Here are just some of the top stories from us on the matter for your consideration:

• The 7 Best Jobs With Only A High School Diploma
• The Most Educated Countries in the World
• America’s Worst States To Be Employed In
• 7 States Slashing Education Spending
• States With The Best & Worst School Systems

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