Illinois’ efforts to control costs for college students actually led to faster tuition increases, finds a study set to appear in the August edition of Economics Education Review.
Since Illinois enacted its Truth-in-Tuition law in 2004, the annual tuition rates at the state’s 12 public colleges and universities rose 26 to 30 percent more than increases in other states not subject to a guaranteed tuition law, University of Illinois researchers found.
Illinois’ increase was 6 percent to 7 percent more over four years than was typical for other colleges with similar missions and sizes.
While the idea behind the law was to help families manage costs, colleges often “frontloaded” tuition increases to guard against inflation.
