Utah's college costs are declining — but proposed education cuts could reverse that
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Utah's public universities charge less than almost anywhere else in the nation — and students here graduate with far less debt in federal loans than in most other states.
The intrigue: Republican lawmakers here are proposing a 10% budget cut to state colleges and universities.
- That comes as a new, statewide college admission guarantee could pull in more students despite projected enrollment declines nationally.
- Meanwhile, President-elect Trump may do away with the Biden administration's yearslong efforts to erase student debt, Axios' Sareen Habeshian reports.
The big picture: The cost to attend an in-state public university has gone down nationwide in the past five years — when adjusted for inflation.
Driving the news: A report last month by the College Board shows in-state tuition and fees at Utah's four-year schools average $8,000 this year — down about 9% since 2019 in inflation-adjusted dollars.
- Only Florida, Wyoming and North Carolina have cheaper public universities.
Between the lines: In actual dollars, tuition has gone up at Utah's public universities — just not as fast as inflation.
By the numbers: College is still getting easier to to pay for, Mark Becker, President of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, said in a prepared statement.
- About 49% of students at public universities nationally graduate with debt, down from 59% a decade ago, Becker said. And the amount they have to pay back has fallen 17%.
Zoom in: About 316,700 Utahns are paying off federal student loans, with an average balance of $33,470, per federal education data.
- That's nearly $2,000 less than the national average of $36,200 and the 13th lowest of any state.
What they're saying: "This [College Board] report underscores the vital importance of robust state investment in higher education and federal student aid such as the Pell Grant to drive progress on college affordability," Becker said.
Yes, but: Trump has repeatedly bashed the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness plans and vowed to dismantle the Department of Education, which manages most federal student loans.
- He hasn't outlined a clear plan for handling the nearly $2 trillion national student debt crisis in his second White House term.
Catch up quick: After the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court blocked Biden's signature student loan forgiveness plan last year, his administration still found ways to deliver relief to some borrowers by circumventing the need for congressional or court approval.
- Biden used the Department of Education's existing authority to provide more than $168 billion in relief to more than 4.7 million borrowers since 2021.