By: Jennifer Dekel

College students, prospective college students, and parents, beware: college cost increases have reached a crisis point, witnesses from schools around the country said at a congressional hearing on September 23rd.

"Cost factors prevent 48 percent of all college-qualified, low-income high school graduates from attending a four-year college and 22 percent from pursuing any college at all," Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-CA) said. "At the rate we are going, by the end of the decade, more than two million college-qualified students will miss out on the opportunity to go to college." Rep. McKeon based his statement on the findings of the Congressional Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance.

Rep. McKeon sits on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce. He chairs the Committee's Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness, which held the hearing.

Rep. McKeon claimed that cost increases have been occurring for decades, in both good and bad economic times, causing the average student today to graduate with about $16,000 in higher education debt. At the same time, federal student aid cannot keep up to pace with the tuition hikes.

Several weeks before the hearing, Rep. McKeon and Chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee John Boehner (R-OH), released a report called The College Cost Crisis, which "declared that the nation's higher education system is in crisis as a result of exploding cost increases that threaten to put college out of reach for low and middle income students and families."

The report also concluded that both students and parents are "losing patience" with the costs associated with higher education and with college institutions while they "are not accountable enough to parents, students, and taxpayers - the consumers of higher education."

According to the report, the "consumers of higher education" are not provided with enough information regarding tuition and tuition increases, in order that they may choose the appropriate institution that meets their financial circumstances.

Dr. F. King Alexander, the President of Murray State University, stated, The College Cost Crisis report misleads its readers while utilizing percentages rather than dollars, when referring to tuition increases. "Students and families pay college tuition in dollars, not percentages, yet the vast majority of public discourse by policy-makers and media sources of college cost increases is simply based on percentage growth," said Alexander.

"For example, if one were to use percentages instead of real dollars as does The College Cost Crisis report in its findings, you would discover that public universities in such states as Hawaii, Arkansas, Idaho, Texas, Tennessee, Wyoming, North Carolina, Montana, and Kentucky have had the most significant percentage increases in tuition, yet these are the states where public universities have the lowest tuition costs in the nation."

Alexander said that at Murray State University as well as other lower-tuition state universities that charge much less than the national average, the lowering of state appropriations, which accounts for a much higher percentage of educational costs than do student tuition and fees, are the primary cause for an increase in tuition prices.

Nevertheless, "Murray State University, much like the majority of public universities throughout the nation, has taken many steps to reduce its educational expenditures and to implement cost saving measures," according to Alexander. Such steps taken by Murray State University included the elimination of over 10 budgeted faculty positions and the elimination of 29 graduate assistantships, as well as reductions in professional support and development programs.

In response to the crisis associated with institutions of higher education, Rep. McKeon proposed a bill "to closely monitor tuition and fee increases by developing a college affordability index that will serve as a standard measure for institutions of higher education to measure increases in tuition and fees." The proposal also suggests the creation of College Affordability Demonstration Programs in order to aid universities with new approaches to improving higher education during these financially difficult times.