Tuition and fees have matched educational costs close enough for at least an increase that strong and sustained to represent a seriously problematic increase in total costs, esp. combined with the fact the government spending on education (or even just post-secondary education since that chart was not about earlier education) has also increased.
If (number arbitrary, not actual amounts or even ratios to actual amounts) college and university education spending was 1000, and 500 of it was from government, then it increased to 5000, with 1500 from government and 3500 from students, governments percentage declined from 50 percent to 30 percent, but it reasonable to say that government "cut backs" were the reason for the higher tuition since no cut backs occurred. Its is reasonable to point out that the total cost only increased by 5X not by the 7X the tuition and fees went up, but its a real minor point to make any fuss about. Increasing total costs are what's driving the increase in tuition and fees, and the difference between them isn't all that large.
It is probably correct that tuition and fees have in recent years increased faster than total college/university spending on educating students. But that after it had gone the other way for years with costs rising faster than tuition and fees.
In a certain sense the chart, while accurate, is misleading since total costs have not increased that much, but its not very misleading since total costs have increased by a similar order of magnitude. If the chart was "tuition and fees plus government support" it would show a similarly dramatic increase.
In any case that wasn't the main point of the article. The spending was not the income. |
