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Fees for next year are soaring at public and private colleges

As this year's graduating college seniors struggle to find jobs in a tight market, students who will be returning to campus in the fall face financial problems of their own: soaring costs. Next year the total bill (tuition, room, board and assorted incidentals) for a year at a private college is expected to jump as much as 12%, from an average of $7,475 to more than $8,300; the average cost of attending a four-year state school could rise from $4,388 to nearly $4,800.

Why are many of these institutions raising their fees at a clip greater than the 3.9% inflation rate of 1982? For one thing, private colleges depend on tuition for more than half their income. During the past decade, even when inflation hit its peak of 13.3% in 1979, most schools hesitated to boost fees at the same rate to cover costs that were climbing as well. As a result, faculty raises lagged and colleges deferred maintenance. Moreover, Government research grants, which help sustain 50 to 60 of the larger universities, private as well as public, have leveled off in the Reagan years while costs continue to rise. Says William McNamara, director of communications at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU): "There finally came a time when holding back was no longer possible."

The need for steep increases at the smaller, less well-known private schools worries their administrators. While there will always be a Harvard, no matter how high the stakes, many private-school officials realize that higher tuition could allow state institutions to siphon some students away. Pat Smith, director of legislative analysis at the American Council on Education, notes that the small private schools "could price themselves out of the market." The rise in fees, however, puts these schools in a catch-22 situation: the more tuitions go up, the more they have to boost scholarship funds, or deny admission to some promising candidates. But if they spend more money on scholarships, the budget goes up, and that in turn forces an additional crease in tuitions.

Still, many of the nation's most prestigious schools are determined to find financial aid for qualified needy students. Says Stanford's Raymond Bacchetti, director of university budgets: "We don't want Stanford to become an institution where somebody's socioeconomic status determines whether he can afford to be here."

Next fall Stanford will be increasing its tuition, room and board by 9.3%, to nearly $13,000. As a group, the Ivy League schools will remain the costliest in the country. Yale will jump 10.1% to $12,980, Princeton 12.6% to $12,910, and Columbia College anticipates a 12% boost to $12,750. Harvard will increase its tab by merely 8.7%, its lowest rise in four years. Even at $13,150, Harvard will not reign as the most expensive university in the U.S. Two that are costlier: Bennington College ($13,510) and M.I.T. ($13,480).

State-supported universities have an additional worry about the economic pinch: shrinking allotments from their legislatures, which provide nearly half of the income of these institutions. To bridge the financial gap, they too are raising tuitions. The University of Michigan increased its bill by 15% for the current year, charging $1,976 for in-state freshmen and sophomores. The University of California system expects to raise its fees about 10%, to nearly $1,300. And the huge State University of New York (SUNY), the nation's largest university system (380,000 students on 64 campuses), also proposes to hike undergraduate tuition by 28%, to $1,350. Ohio State University is faced with a problem of its own. Earlier this year, Ohio Governor Richard Celeste slashed the state's education budget, thus reducing funds to the university by almost 9% from 1982. Moreover, the step comes at a particularly awkward time; OSU plans to curb its enrollment, which for the past seven years has been above the state-ordered ceiling.

The forecast by academic experts for the near future is just as dismal. They predict double-digit tuition hikes for the next year or two for private colleges. Says John Phillips, NAICU president: "We're looking at a year of schooling costing, on average, a total of $9,000 two years from now." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.