The Southern Regional Education Board’s (SREB’s) college-affordability profiles for the 16 states in its region illustrate that families had to pay a higher percentage of their income in 2017-18 for a full-time student to attend public four-year institutions than in 2012-13.
Families who earned less than $30,000 a year — categorized as the lowest income bracket — had to pay approximately 19% to 46% of their annual income to be able to afford a year of enrollment at public four-year research university in 2017-2018, said Christiana Datubo-Brown, lead author of the report and research associate for SREB’s education data services.
And in some states, as many as 30% of families with children in college fall in this lowest income group, Datubo-Brown added.
“Altogether, what this data is telling us is that, if there isn’t a proactive effort to making college more affordable for low-income students, states are most likely going to experience a hit to preparing their workforce for the future economy, a future economy where we’ll need a lot more people with education past high school in order to fill the middle- and high-skills jobs that are growing in number,” Datubo-Brown said.
According to the SREB, tuition and fees are rising — from an average of $6,216 per full-time equivalent (FTE) student in 2007-08 to $9,914 in 2017-18 for public four-year colleges — but state appropriations for these schools are in decline — from $7,857 to $6,827 per student in the same time period.
Amid decreased state revenues, higher ed funding cuts, and reduced federal aid application — Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) — completion rates in the 16 states, are making matters of affordability more worrying, according to a brief on SREB’s findings.
The 16 states in SREB’s region are Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.
