College Pricing Trends for 2013-2014

The College Board recently released new college cost figures for the 2013/2014 academic year in its annual Trends in College Pricing report.

The College Board noted that even though this year's increase in tuition and fees was the smallest in many years, the growth in student grant aid from previous years has not continued. As a result, many students are facing higher costs, even in the face of smaller price increases.

To read the full Trends in College Pricing 2013 report, go to trends.collegeboard.org. Here are cost highlights:

Public colleges (in-state students):

Tuition and fees increased an average of 2.9% to $8,893
Room and board increased an average of 3.6% to $9,498
Total cost of attendance for 2013/2014 is $22,826

Public colleges (outstate students):

Tuition and fees increased an average of 3.1% to $22,203
Room and board increased an average of 3.6% to $9,498
Total cost of attendance for 2013/2014 is $36,136

Private colleges:

Tuition and fees increased an average of 3.8% to $30,094
Room and board increased an average of 3.5% to $10,823
Total cost of attendance for 2013/2014 is $44,750

"Total cost of attendance" includes tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, and an allowance for transportation and personal expenses.

I know as parents of college-age children read this, they're thinking, "Come on scholarship!"

Wishing you and your child luck,

Kevin Kroskey, CFP, MBA

Diversification: Disciplinarian of Disciplinarians

Disciplined diversification works when you do and even when you don't want it to. Diversification in effect forces you to sell the thing that has been doing so well in your portfolio and to buy the thing that hasn't. While this makes rational sense, it is emotionally difficult to execute. Think back to the tail end of 2008--were you selling bonds and cash to buy stocks? Most likely you weren't unless your advisor or some sort of automatic trigger did it for you. Carl Richards of www.behaviorgap.com provided a good reminder of how diversification works in a recent NY Times blog post. The diversification he discusses here is more so related to equity asset-class diversification but also touches on the three basic building blocks--equities, bonds, and cash. He doesn't discuss alternative asset classes -- an asset class that doesn't fit neatly into the three basic categories -- being used to further diversification, but that's a detailed topic for another day. ...

Should We Go Back on the Gold Standard?

If you watched the Republican presidential debates, you might have noticed that a number of candidates yearn for a return to the gold standard—that is, that every dollar issued by the government would be backed by a comparable value in gold bars that were stashed away in a government vault. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas argued that the dollar should have a fixed value in gold, and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky added that printing money without backing in the precious metal destroys the value of our currency. Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, thinks that if not gold, then the dollar could be pegged to a basket of commodities. All are mostly concerned that printing money will cause runaway inflation. But there may be several problems with this return to the fiscal system of the late 1800s and early 1900s. One is that inflation has barely budged even as the Federal Reserve Board was piling one QE stimulus on top of another, and the government was adding records amoun...

What Does $100 Buy You in Your Home State?

A new map released by the Tax Foundation shows exactly how far $100 would go in all 50 states. Using recently released data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Tax Foundation was able to show how the varying prices of goods, housing and income taxes in each state can impact consumers’ purchasing power. Southerners and Midwesterners have a serious edge over those along the East and West Coasts. A hundred bucks goes the furthest in Mississippi, where $100 will buy you what would cost $115.74 in another state that's closer to the national average. The next low-price states are Arkansas, Missouri, and Alabama. Ohio comes in at an encouraging $112.11 Meanwhile, $100 would only be worth $84.60 in the District of Columbia, the priciest state, $85.32 in Hawaii and $86.66 in New York. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-much--100-is-worth-in-your-state-152310027.html Click the Map Read More

Kevin Kroskey's Money & Mind

Search This Blog