As Alabama public college tuition rises once again, higher education leaders say the state needs to do more to help offset the steep cost of college.

According to a 2022 State Higher Education Finance report, Alabama college net tuition revenue was twice the national average in 2021, at $13,685 per full-time student.

Net tuition revenue is the total amount of tuition and fees, minus state and institutional financial aid.

Add in housing, fees and other expenses, and Alabama students spent about $26,500 to $32,000 to cover college costs that year. Experts said that only students in Michigan, Vermont and Delaware paid more for degrees.

Read more: Alabama commission requests 11% increase in college funding, citing inflation

“I don’t think that’s where we really want to be, but some of that requires us to invest and do the fair share of contributions by the state to keep those rates down,” Jim Purcell, director of the Alabama Commission on Higher Education, told legislators this spring.

According to the SHEF report, Alabama provided about half the national average in financial aid to students – which means that as tuition increases, Alabama students and families are paying higher proportions of costs out-of-pocket.

“Alabama’s been gouging students for a long time, and it’s not really because the institutions want to do that,” Purcell said at a March commission meeting, citing recent research. “It’s because state support has declined proportionally over the last couple of years, probably the last decade.”

How much is tuition rising?

College tuition prices steadily increased after 2000, outpacing inflation by more than 170%, according to the Education Data Initiative.

But that rate reached a historic low during the pandemic, and has yet to catch up with rising consumer costs, according to a March 8 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In Alabama, college tuition has actually declined in some areas – especially when adjusted for inflation. But that’s largely dependent on what kind of school a student attends, and where they’re from, an AL.com analysis found.

Find your school’s tuition, cost of attendance and change over time in the charts below. See the graphs online here.

AL.com analyzed 10 years of undergraduate tuition and fee data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Historical prices were converted to 2022 dollars using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index.

Tuition at Alabama’s four-year public universities continues to rise, with out-of-state students paying, on-average, more than a private school sticker price.

In 2022, the average out-of-state student at a public four-year university paid $20,388 a year on college tuition alone.

That’s compared to about $17,000 in average tuition at private non-profit universities and about $12,000 at private for-profit schools.

Meanwhile, average tuition for all two- and four-year universities statewide has been declining slightly over the past decade, with overall unadjusted tuition decreasing by less than 1% each year.

Out-of-state students were paying an average of $16,164 in the 2012-2013 school year, which dropped to $15,921 last year. In-state tuition dropped from $12,368 to $11,555 in the same time span.

Adjusted for inflation, average tuition saw its steepest decline last year, by 8% for out-of-state students and 9% for in-state students.

Much of that dip comes from a recent decline in tuition at public Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and an even larger decrease in tuition prices at community colleges and private four-years.

And that doesn’t account for aid, or for other expenses like fees, which are typically set by a board and can be highly variable among institutions.

Not all colleges follow the trends.

At least a third of the state’s public and private institutions, including UA System schools, froze tuition throughout the pandemic.

Troy University and Athens State University were the only state colleges that saw an increase in both published and inflation-adjusted tuition costs last year.

Meanwhile, other schools are adjusting at drastically different rates.

Auburn University at Montgomery, a public four-year, is slowly raising prices after decreasing out-of-state tuition by thousands of dollars in 2015 and 2018.

Birmingham-Southern College, a private liberal arts school, cut tuition by more than half in 2018, amid financial crisis. Spring Hill College also dropped prices dramatically last year, from $39,336 to $21,100.

“This price reduction makes Spring Hill one of the most affordable private colleges in the country while retaining our reputation for providing a Jesuit, Catholic educational experience of the highest quality,” the school’s website reads.

If Birmingham-Southern stays afloat next year, school leaders plan to keep tuition the same. But they say they’re wary that could have some unintended consequences.

Private schools doled out the highest amount of student aid compared to other categories, AL.com found. At Spring Hill in 2020, 100% of students were awarded some level of aid, at an average of nearly $35,000 in combined grants, data shows.

That can make college costs tough to compare among institutions – and some students may be more likely to go for an out-of-state school with a higher sticker price if they are able to get more in scholarships, said BSC President Daniel Coleman.

“It’s like buying a car,” Coleman said in a recent interview. “I hate to say it, because it shouldn’t be this way, but it is and I can’t change it.”

Legislative priorities for 2023

The National Center for Education Statistics provides tuition data up to the 2021-2022 school year, which makes it tough to make projections for the year ahead.

According to data collected by ACHE, tuition and fees increased by about 2% for Alabama public colleges this school year – a rate that’s on par with national estimates.

But affordability remains a challenge for some Alabamians.

A 2018 report by the Southern Regional Education Board found that Alabama households spent more of their income on college costs than any other state in the region.

In his address to lawmakers last month, Purcell said affordability issues often come down to state funding.

Since 2008, funding for public colleges has shifted from about one-third of the state education budget, to just over a quarter, he said. Alabama also funds four-year colleges at a level that’s 25% less than the national rate, SHEF found.

“The question is how did we get there, and some of it is for us in the room to place some blame,” Purcell said.

Top five Alabama colleges that saw the largest in-state tuition increases in the past decade:

1. University of North Alabama (80%): Increased from $5,328 to $9600
2. Troy University (56%): Increased from $5,976 to $9,312
3. Alabama A&M University (54%): Increased from $5,592 to $8,610
4. Jacksonville State University (53%): Increased from $6,360 to $9,720
5. University of West Alabama (47%): Increased $6,170 to $9,100.

Most expensive Alabama colleges for out-of-state students:

1. Samford University: 2022 out-of-state tuition was $34,410, compared to $24,570 for in-state students
2. The University of Alabama: 2022 out-of-state tuition was $30,250, compared to $10,780 for instate students.
3. The University of Montevallo: 2022 out-of state tuition was $25,110, compared to $12,090 for in-state students.
4. Auburn University: 2022 out-of-state tuition was more than triple that of in-state tuition, at $22,500 compared to $7,992.
5. Auburn University at Montgomery: 2022 out-of-state tuition was $24,300, compared to $7,992 for in-state students.