True Cost of College Cut

There is now hard evidence that the true cost of college will be cut in the 2008-09 school year for some middle and upper middle class families. True cost is defined as the difference between Cost of Attendance and grants,scholarships and other aid that does not have to be paid back. Harvard just announced that a family making upwards of $180,000 that is paying $30,360 this year will pay about $17,500 next year.

This cut is the direct result of the Higher Education Act of 2007 signed earlier this year that requires the Department of Education to investigate colleges with large endowments and report if they have been providing enough tuition support for current students. Colleges did not want to be singled out as hoarders and have begun to act. Some colleges announced plans to guarantee that tuition will not rise during the student's tenure while others plan to replace loans with grants. These are worn out strategies that have been heard before and failed. It is clear however with the action taken by Harvard to make college more affordable, elite expensive colleges will have to cut their true cost of college to remain competitive.

For decades Congress has heard complaints about the hideous cost of college. Their solutions haven't worked. In fact making money easy to get for college by providing guaranteed low cost loans may have been the biggest contributing factor to the continual rise in cost.

What changed? People with money have influence and send their children to elite colleges. Congress listens to people with influence and agreed that the high cost of these elite colleges should be studied. Harvard then decided to spend more of their $35 billion endowment for tuition support. Let's put that figure into perspective. A million seconds is roughly 12 days whereas a billion seconds is approximately 32 years. Will this new tuition initiative be enough to avoid the Crimson from being called "The Hoarders?"