Services · Multi-line item chart
Average undergraduate tuition + required fees · public and private institutions · all available data
Reading the chart. Public 4-year in-state tuition grew 12.13x from 1980 to 2022 — the steepest of the four lines, despite being the cheapest in absolute dollars. State divestment from public higher education pushed in-state sticker prices up faster than private tuition over the period, even though private tuition started about 4.5x higher. The BLS CPI subindex (which extends through 2025) tracks the same trajectory closely. CPI All Items grew 3.55x over the same window — every measure of tuition ran roughly 2.6 to 3.8 times faster than headline inflation. About 50% of undergraduates attend public 4-year, 28% public 2-year, 16% private nonprofit 4-year, and 4% for-profit (NCES Fall 2023).