Nell Gluckman of The Chronicle of Higher Education wrote an interesting piece about the challenges of public cutbacks in the state of Louisiana. The premise of the article is that there are trickle-down implications of state cutbacks in tuition, faculty morale, and curriculum. Louisiana has passed along substantial tuition increases to its students. However, it has not had the highest tuition increases statewide since 2012. Using data from the Tuition and Pricing Interactive we rolled up the averages by state for two and four year public institutions to see which states have had the highest five-year tuition increases.
Massachusetts while having the highest tuition increase over the five-year period has a still pedestrian average tuition of $4,833. The states with the highest average tuition for 2016? Vermont and Pennsylvania at $15,857 and $14,358 although both have kept tuition flat since 2012.