The cost of tuition and room and board at Ohio’s public universities has continued to rise, faster than the national average, but lower than the rate of inflation.
Tuition and fees — the costs that students must pay to attend a university, whether they live on campus or not — went up about 4% between fall 2021 and fall 2022 for in-state freshmen at Ohio’s four-year, public institutions, according to Ohio Department of Higher Education data.
That’s less than this year’s historic inflation, which went up about 8.5%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Nationally this fall though, tuition costs rose just 1.8% at public, four-year universities, 3.5% at nonpublic four-year universities and 1.6% at two-year community colleges without adjusting for inflation, according to the College Board, a nonprofit that helps students find colleges and administers the SAT.
“Another year of historically low increases in public tuition prices is welcome news to students and families, especially when household incomes have remained stagnant,” said Jessica Howell, College Board’s vice president for research.
According to a Dayton Daily News review of Ohio Department of Higher Education data, the cost of tuition at Ohio public universities went up 24.5% in a eight-year span between fall 2014 and fall 2022.
That’s an exact match for the 24.5% increase in the city-average Consumer Price Index covering the same period according to BLS. Ohio records show that tuition costs were increasing faster than the CPI in the middle of last decade, but now are increasing slower than the index.
Tuition costs vary widely among Ohio’s public universities, from $7,596 for two semesters at Central State University to $17,354 at Miami University for two semesters. Most Ohio public universities, though, charge between $10,000 and $13,000 for a full year of tuition.
On average in Ohio, the cost of on-campus room and board went up 27.1% between fall 2014 and fall 2022, from $9,754 to $12,401 this semester.
College costs continue to rise, even though demand has dropped, as the total number of students enrolled in Ohio colleges has declined.
Fewer students are now coming to Ohio colleges straight out of high school, and universities are seeing older, nontraditional students, according to ODHE.
“With a smaller population of traditional students, Ohio has programs designed to attract nontraditional students or those with some college but no degree,” said Jeff Robinson, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Higher Education.
Robinson said grants and other programs, like College Comeback, can bring students who dropped out of college back to complete a degree, which can also improve Ohio’s workforce.
To combat rising costs of college, ODHE requires all colleges and universities to submit their tuition cost, room and board cost and fees.
Ohio requires universities to have a four-year price guarantee that means any freshman coming in will get the same price on tuition and fees for all four years, Robinson said. Some Ohio universities guarantee a lock on not just the price of tuition but the price of room and board for each year the student is in school.
The College Board also found the total amount of financial aid awarded to students increased 7% this year after adjusting for inflation. Most of that increase has come from institutional grant aid, the College Board said.
