The (Falling) Cost of College

Some political hacks say that the cost of attending a four-year college has skyrocketed over the past few years.

For some time, I’ve suspected this was false, but now there’s proof. The nut of it is that while nominal tuition has been growing at the quick pace, the amount that the average student pays has stayed the same or even decreased, in some cases.

Anyway, I’ve written a bit more on the Heritage weblog, with actual numbers.

To look at this another way, higher education funding has actually become more progressive in recent years, a trend that the political left should be celebrating, right? And the free-market right should be pleased that, at least for private colleges, these funds are mostly private.

Things are a bit different, however, for public universities, which have benefitted from a massive influx of mostly federal cash. On the one hand, this money–disbursed mostly though tax credits–works just like a denominated voucher; but on the other hand, of course, federal spending is evil.

So, does anyone have the numbers for Dartmouth?