Idaho College Students Getting Deeper In Debt Annual Fees, While Still Relatively Low, Increase 375 Percent In 20 Years
Idaho may be offering its young people a reasonably priced higher education compared with the cost in other Western states, but students are facing an ever rising mountain of debt when they graduate.
“It startles me every year,” Idaho State University President Richard Bowen said.
While resident fees at Idaho’s four-year state schools are the lowest among comparable state schools throughout the continental West, those fees are nearly five times higher today than they were 20 years ago. Meanwhile, tax support for the colleges is only about three times higher.
“It’s true that we’re low in comparison with other states and the United States and are affordable for most,” University of Idaho student body president Jim Dalton said. “But you have to compare the price tag and the benefit you’re getting with the economic culture in Idaho. For many students, a few dollars make a difference.”
The figures bear out Dalton’s concern - and they are more than a few dollars.
In 1978, annual student fees at the three state universities were around $400 and claimed just more than 3 percent of the average annual wage in Idaho of just more than $10,700.
Today, annual resident fees at the schools are more than $1,900, an increase of around 375 percent, while the state’s average annual wage is under $25,000, an increase of just 130 percent. Fees now claim nearly 8 percent of that average annual wage.
Gov. Phil Batt wants lawmakers to pump an extra $3 million into the state aid package for the schools to ease the pressure on student fees - something higher education experts believe is critical to maintaining access for the largest possible number of young people.
But University of Idaho President Robert Hoover points out Idaho has one of the most skewed income distributions in the nation with few people in the middle range and a large number earning below the average.
Scholarships are critical to many seeking a college degree, and tens of millions of dollars in scholarships and grants are being provided to Idaho students every year while the schools press to find even more money.
But it has not been enough to check the borrowing by students trying to stay in school.
In the past eight years, the average student at an Idaho school has seen loans jump from financing 18 percent of his or her college expenses to nearly 40 percent.
Lewis-Clark State College President James Hottois says 94 percent of his school’s students receive financial aid, and Boise State University President Charles Ruch said 80 percent of his school’s students work and 50 percent get some kind of student aid.
In Pocatello, 60 percent of the students at Idaho State University are borrowing to continue their education. Last year, they borrowed more than $39 million - an average of $6,700 for each of the 5,825 students.
Gwen Sullivan, who teaches at Clearwater Valley High School and has children in college, told legislative budget writers that when she graduated from Lewis-Clark five years ago, she was looking at repaying $10,000 in student loans instead of trying to figure out how to finance her retirement.
“It’s ridiculous to graduate from college with that kind of debt,” she said.
xxxx LEANING ON LOANS In the past eight years, the average student at an Idaho school has seen loans jump from financing 18 percent of his or her college expenses to nearly 40 percent.