Many Florida families have been paying up to 25 percent of median income for public in-state college costs — out of reach for some middle-class parents who have taken recent pay cuts or lost jobs, according to a new study.
Some South Florida families are paying even more — plunking down what amounts to about a third of the median income for Floridians for students to attend Florida International University or Florida Atlantic University, according to the study co-written by the Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy at FIU.
With 15 percent tuition hikes starting this fall, FAU students will pay more than $17,000 a year, including room and board. FIU students face similar costs.
Meanwhile, the Great Recession has shrunk median household income to $48,772 in Broward and $49,660 in Palm Beach County by 2009, the U.S. Census Bureau reported. In fact, the American middle class finished the last decade poorer and in fewer numbers than when the 21st Century began, according to a Pew Research Center report released Wednesday.
As a end result, school is turning into unaffordable to increasingly more South Florida households and scholars, except they pass deeply into debt, concluded Bruce Nissen, a co-author of the record and chairman of the advisory committee of research Institute on Social and financial coverage.
Students are being priced out of an education, said Nissen, who also worked with researchers at the New York-based Demos, a national public policy center.
Kids are bearing the brunt of the state’s recent budget tightening, he added. Florida has cut higher education spending 40 percent in three years — with in-state public universities responding by raising tuition, fees and dorm costs. Until I did the study, I didn’t realize it was that bad, Nissen said.
The rising college prices will keep a few children from becoming educated to fill long term jobs to be able to require a sheepskin, in step with the have a look at, Florida’s nice cost Shift: How upper training Cuts Undermine Its destiny heart magnificence.
Parents are feeling panic and fear once they start looking into college costs, said J. Jay Greene, president of Boca Raton-based College Planning PhD.
Greene is trying to get younger moms and dads to attend his free college-planning workshops. Most don’t start looking into faculty prices until their children are juniors or seniors in high school. Parents need to start saving sooner, he said.
They also can’t count on Bright Futures paying for most of their children’s tuition — not when the state has been chipping away at the scholarships, Greene said.
And moms and dads need to believe other price-chopping choices, corresponding to having their children stay at home and move to Broward College or Palm Beach State University for at least a couple of years, Greene added.
The first years in school are usually spent taking prerequisite classes sooner than students start that specialize in their undergraduate top, he mentioned.
Greene will be holding a free How to Pay for College Without Going Broke workshop on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Spanish River High School, 5100 Jog Road, Boca Raton. He also will be speaking for free at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 30 at Boca Raton High School, 1501 NW 15th Court.