College Tuition, Student Loan Debt Increasing

Student loans are becoming more difficult to obtain, while college tuition costs continue to rise. The current recession and the tightness in the credit market have put a pinch on college students looking for loans. And yet those student loans are needed now more than ever.

As the New York Times reports:

The rising cost of college — even before the recession — threatens to put higher education out of reach for most Americans, according to the biennial report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.

“If we go on this way for another 25 years, we won’t have an affordable system of higher education,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the center, a nonpartisan organization that promotes access to higher education.

Read the full article in the New York Times.