--- title: Rising Cost of American College Tuition: A Century of Worry description: "Last week parents paid school term bills with a twinge at the expense," TIME noted in 1927. As students head to school, the twinge is back. canonical: https://time.com/4472261/college-cost-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-31T12:30:47.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:16:55.735Z article:section: History og:title: Putting the Rising Cost of College in Perspective og:description: "Last week parents paid school term bills with a twinge at the expense," TIME noted in 1927 og:url: https://time.com/4472261/college-cost-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2d4d99f556a238bd/6988a438e20a87e48ea92370/student.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 1930s Student In A Library og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Putting the Rising Cost of College in Perspective twitter:description: "Last week parents paid school term bills with a twinge at the expense," TIME noted in 1927 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2d4d99f556a238bd/6988a438e20a87e48ea92370/student.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Putting the Rising Cost of College in Perspective > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Aug 31, 2016 12:30 PM UTC  Work table of a female student. About 1930. Work table of a female student. About 1930. Imagno / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Aug 31, 2016 12:30 PM UTC As American college students get ready for the new semester, many of them and their families have more on their minds than homework: the problem of paying is a national one. The questions of [free college](http://time.com/money/4430853/free-college-tuition-support-survey/), student-loan [restructuring](http://time.com/4394548/hillary-clinton-3-month-halt-student-loans-debt/) and how to get the most [bang for your tuition buck](http://new.time.com/money/best-colleges/rankings/best-colleges/) are debated at the highest levels of politics and around kitchen tables. Which is nothing new. A look at TIME’s archives reveals that fretting about the cost of college has been a national issue in the U.S. for a century. As John D. Rockefeller Jr. [explained](http://time.com/vault/issue/1927-06-27/page/18/) it in 1927, there was once a time when it made sense for society not to expect students to pay much for college: most of the students were going into the ministry, or into some other low-paying but society-benefiting career, so it behooved the nation to keep costs low by supplementing funds with endowments and gifts from men like Rockefeller himself. That had changed by the early 20th century, when more men (and a few women) were going to college, many of them in preparation for their future high-earning careers, or simply because it was becoming more normal. Why, the reasoning went, shouldn’t they pay more? If they couldn’t afford it, Rockefeller suggested a system of student loans that sounds pretty nice today. “For those students who could not meet these higher costs scholarships and student aid would need to be used with increasing liberality, and student loan funds provided on a large scale,” he declared. “For most students other than those who go into the ministry or teaching, a loan either with or without interest, with the first payment date possibly ten years after graduation, would meet the situation and not prove an undue burden.” (His detractors cautioned, however, that such a system would make college the domain of the wealthy.) Sure enough, in the years that followed, as the national economy tanked and colleges moved further away from the ministry-centric mission they had once espoused, [many ](http://www.time.com/vault/issue/1930-07-14/page/59)of the country’s best schools raised tuition. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) As a result, the cost of a year of room and board and tuition at Vassar in 1931 was notably high: a whopping $1,200—or $500 for locals who lived at home. ($1,200 in 1931 is [about ](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1200&year1=1931&year2=2016)$19,000 in today’s dollars.) In 1934, a freshman matriculating at Dartmouth would spend $1,050 on tuition, room and board, and “incidentals.” The expected real cost of a year at Dartmouth, after fraternity fees and other expected expenses were accounted, was $1,700—by TIME’s [reporting](http://www.time.com/vault/issue/1934-08-20/page/40), “highest in the land.” (That’s [about ](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1%2C700.00&year1=1934&year2=2016)$30,500 in today’s dollars.) That year the U.S. Office of Education surveyed the nation’s colleges about the cost of attendance and found that the average cost for one academic year was $630 ($11,300 [today](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=630&year1=1934&year2=2016)). In 1944, when President Franklin Roosevelt [signed ](http://www.time.com/vault/issue/1944-06-26/page/65)the G.I. Bill of Rights, he guaranteed that qualifying veterans would receive a free year of college—meaning up to $500 a year. ($6,800 [today](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=500&year1=1944&year2=2016).) In the years that followed World War II, philanthropic donations to American colleges were [up](http://www.time.com/vault/issue/1950-06-19/page/30), but so were costs. Tuitions had been raised “to the limit,” TIME noted, in places like the University of Pennsylvania, where students were charged $600 in 1950 ([nearly ](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=600.00&year1=1950&year2=2016)$6,000 today). By 1960, with enrollment [surging](http://www.time.com/vault/issue/1960-01-04/page/35), even more money was needed, and a major tuition hike was forecast. That year, college costs [surveyed](http://www.time.com/vault/issue/1960-12-05/page/49) by TIME included $2,015 for tuition, room and board, and fees for a year at Bates, and $1,450 for Lewis and Clark. (That’s [$16,400](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=2015&year1=1960&year2=2016) and [$11,800](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1450&year1=1960&year2=2016) today.) These days, the [average](https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/pay-for-college/college-costs/college-costs-faqs) cost for a year at a four-year college ranges from $9,410 for in-state public tuition to $32,410 for private. Neither of those figures include room and board. But, in general and at many specific places, costs are far higher: just looking at a few of the colleges surveyed by TIME over the years, Vassar these days [costs](http://studentaccounts.vassar.edu/tuition-and-fees/) $52,320 for a year’s tuition, and [Bates](http://www.bates.edu/financial-services/costs-and-payment/) is $64,500 for tuition, room and board and fees. So the worry over rising tuition may be nothing new, but the scale of those worries _is_. While politicians debate solutions, what are families to do in the meantime? In 1969, TIME [proposed](http://www.time.com/vault/issue/1969-06-27/page/63) one unorthodox solution: “How can parents cope with the rising cost of college? Answer: raise a boy like Thomas Lagos, who has just saved his family thousands of dollars by breezing through Ohio’s Wittenberg University in a single year.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4472261/college-cost-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4472261/college-cost-history/"},"headline":"Putting the Rising Cost of College in Perspective","datePublished":"2016-08-31T12:30:47.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:16:55.735Z","description":"\"Last week parents paid school term bills with a twinge at the expense,\" TIME noted in 1927","url":"https://time.com/4472261/college-cost-history/","keywords":["Education"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2d4d99f556a238bd/6988a438e20a87e48ea92370/student.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2d4d99f556a238bd/6988a438e20a87e48ea92370/student.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"1930s Student In A Library","caption":"Work Table Of A Student In A Library","creditText":"Imagno / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/education/","name":"Education"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4472261/college-cost-history/","name":"Putting the Rising Cost of College in Perspective"}}]}] ```