A college education has gotten so expensive that more and more people are questioning whether a degree is worth the cost, according to polls. It may not just be the high costs that are a factor but also how quickly prices have risen. If that’s the case, Massachusetts colleges are part of the problem.
Nearly two dozen Massachusetts colleges, or just over one-third of those analyzed by the Boston Business Journal, have had student costs rise by at least 40% over the last decade. Among those, average costs are now $20,000 a year more than they were a decade ago, even when factoring in in-state tuition rates for public universities.
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The average increase was 34%, according to the analysis of federal education data. The analysis considers costs for full-time undergraduates living on campus, including tuition, fees, room and board. (Those costs, as reported to the U.S. Department of Education, differ slightly from a Business Journal analysis earlier this month on which Massachusetts colleges now cost $80,000 or more a year.)
The average cost in 2013, including in-state discounts for public schools, was $44,752. Adjusted for inflation, that would equal $58,827 today. Instead, average costs have risen to $60,294.
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