“Penny-pinching states have cut funding for colleges and universities. Schools, in turn, have raised tuition to compensate. And it’s the students who are left emptying their wallets — or, more likely, borrowing the cash — to make up the difference.

New estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (brought to my attention via The Atlantic) show just how grim the picture has become. On average, states are spending 28 percent less per student on higher education today than they did at the start of the recession five years ago.”

Public colleges and universities, in turn, have raised tuition. The average tuition price in the nation shot up 27 percent, adjusted for inflation, from the 2007-08 school year to 2012-13.

“Consider these statistics:

• Student debt almost tripled from 2004 to 2012.
• 43 percent of 25-year-olds had student debt in 2012, up 27 percent since 2004.
• Student debt is the only kind of household debt that kept rising through the recession.
• A record 19 percent of U.S. households owed student debt in 2010 (up from 13 percent in 2004).

The result? Increasing student loan debt is contributing to a decline in young people’s wealth accrual – the current crop of young people (those under 40) are worth less now than previous generations were at the same stage.”

Stephen