A few days ago, someone mentioned how nice it would be if students could have their tuition level held steady after enrollment, so they could plan. It got me thinking.

The usual version of that proposal assumes that students enroll full-time at a given tuition level, then sail through, full-time, unimpeded, until their on-time graduation. The benefit to the students (and their families) is obvious, both in terms of absolute amounts of money and in terms of predictability. As a parent who has been paying out-of-state tuition since 2019, I get the appeal.

Of course, the rest of the economy doesn’t freeze costs for years at a time, and college employees live in that economy. So annual tuition increases would still have to happen, but they could only be inflicted upon new students. In any gi

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