As costs continue to rise, paying for college gets tougher for many students

Deborah Ziff:

She doesn't buy books for her classes if she can help it. She works two jobs, sometimes donating plasma for extra cash. She doesn't own a car, shops at Goodwill and rarely goes out to eat.

Despite all of that, UW-Madison student Dena Ohlinger, 23, could no longer afford tuition as a full-time student and cut back to part-time last year. Ohlinger, a fifth-year senior from a small town in southeastern Wisconsin, said her debt is ballooning and she worries she is a financial burden on her parents. It is a struggle each semester to pay tuition.

"I've felt this over and over again, if I was realistic about my financial situation and was trying to make a responsible decision, it would not include college," she said.

Ohlinger is not alone. The cost of college has far out-paced inflation over the past five decades, making it harder for students to work their way through college and come out debt-free, or even with manageable debt. Tuition, books and living expenses for an in-state student living on an adequate but moderate budget is estimated at $22,542 at UW-Madison for 2011-12. It was $1,430 in 1960, which equates to $10,867 in 2011 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 31, 2012 1:54 AM
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