Tuition Control Policies: A Challenging Approach to College Affordability
The rising price of attending college has made college affordability an increasingly important policy issue in recent years. In order to make college more affordable for students and their families, states can pursue three possible options:
The first option is to provide additional state appropriations to colleges, which allows institutions to charge lower tuition rates and/or to offset listed tuition prices through the use of institutional grant aid. The second option is to increase state grant aid awards to reduce the price tag paid by students. The drawback to both of these options is that they require additional state resources, which are often difficult to obtain. A more politically feasible option in a number of states is to enact price controls by implementing limits on how much (if any) tuition and fees can be increased in a given year.
