Good morning, and welcome to Thursday, November 2. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: rick.seltzer@chronicle.com.

Pricing power has evaporated

A new report suggests that colleges continue to face constraints in how much they can charge students.

Sticker prices for tuition and fees increased at a rate lower than inflation this year, according to the latest edition of an annual report the College Board released on Wednesday.

Here’s how those average sticker prices increased in 2023-24, again just for tuition and fees:

• 2.5 percent for in-state students at public four-year colleges
• 2.6 percent for in-district students at public two-year colleges
• 4 percent for students at private nonprofit four-year colleges

The Consumer Price Index jumped by more, 4.5 percent, during the first eight months of 2023.

Of course, net price is more important than sticker price. It’s the net price students pay after factoring in financial aid that matters most to the question of whether students can pay for college. Beyond tuition and fees, their costs also include housing, food, and other necessities.

The net cost of attendance held roughly steady year-over-year. This is the case at public two-year, public four-year, and private nonprofit four-year institutions. The average net cost to attend is slightly lower in each sector, on average, than it was a few years ago, the College Board estimates.

Borrowing for college is down, too.

• Average debt fell among borrowers who graduated with bachelor’s degrees. It was $29,400 in 2021-22, down from $34,000 the year before. That’s among the 51 percent of graduates who had student-loan debt.
• Total borrowing fell for the 12th straight year. It was $152.8 billion in 2010-11 and dropped to $98.2 billion in 2022-23, after adjusting for inflation.
  

Remember: The Daily Briefing has written before about stable and falling college prices. But the trend doesn’t mean college is becoming affordable for all students.

• “The net price many lower-income students must pay is still too high at most institutions,” Phillip Levine, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and an economist at Wellesley College, wrote in April.

The bigger picture: Colleges are in many cases struggling to enroll students who are price sensitive, debt averse, and fewer in number than past cohorts were. If tuition hikes aren’t an option, belt-tightening will continue to hit faculty and staff members at many institutions.

Quick hits

• ACT offers BOGO deal: Students who register and pay for the December 2023 ACT will be able to take another ACT test for free and submit to colleges what the Iowa-based testing provider called a “superscore.” The offer doesn’t apply to students who receive fee waivers, but they can request more than one such waiver. The move comes after colleges’ test-optional policies expanded widely during the pandemic. (ACT, The Chronicle)
• HBCU students plan march to Pennsylvania capital: Students at Lincoln University, in southeastern Pennsylvania, plan to march 66 miles to Harrisburg next week to call on state lawmakers to pass funding for Lincoln, Temple, and Pennsylvania State Universities, as well as the University of Pittsburgh. Republicans have been holding up more than $600 million to try to increase transparency at the four state-related institutions. (KYW, The Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Athletic conferences band together to seek federal NIL law: More than two dozen conferences, including the Power Five, on Wednesday announced the Coalition for the Future of College Athletics. They’re seeking to ban name, image, and likeness payments to athletes during the recruiting process. Congress has been weighing NIL proposals as college-sports leaders are upset by the current patchwork of state laws, as well as the emergence of donor-backed collectives that raise money to recruit top players to particular institutions. (Axios)
• Top West Virginia U. administrator to depart: Rob Alsop, one of the administrative faces of deep cuts that roiled the flagship and prompted faculty members to vote no confidence in President E. Gordon Gee in September, will leave the university at the end of January. Alsop has been senior vice president for strategic initiatives at West Virginia but will spend the remainder of his time there as a special adviser to Gee. (The Chronicle, West Virginia University)
• U. of Washington bars psychology-department searches: The department will not be able to conduct searches for tenured and tenure-track faculty positions for two years after administrators concluded it inappropriately considered race in hiring an assistant professor. Faculty members ranked candidates and changed the hiring process to “provide disparate opportunities for candidates based on their race,” a report found. The university maintained that the candidate who was chosen “is unquestionably qualified” while announcing other corrective actions including training and policy updates. (University of Washington)

War in the Middle East keeps stoking campus tensions

Here’s the latest to know.

The American Civil Liberties Union reminded colleges that the First Amendment and academic freedom protect speech and association. The ACLU pushed back against actions by Florida officials and a letter from the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law that conflated words from the Students for Justice in Palestine group with material support for the terrorist organization Hamas. While the ACLU doesn’t approve of the students’ statements, and college leaders can likewise condemn them, they are nonetheless protected political advocacy, the ACLU wrote.

A Cornell University student was arrested after a series of antisemitic threats. Patrick Dai, 21, faces up to five years in prison on charges of making threats to kill or injure using interstate communications. Prosecutors allege Dai posted on an online message board threats to “shoot up” a Kosher dining hall, slit the throats of Jewish men, rape Jewish women, and behead Jewish babies.

The University of Wisconsin at Madison said accounts of a protest last week outside its Hillel were “significantly exaggerated.” No violence occurred, no direct threats were made, and a flag was not cut, despite what was suggested on social media, according to a university statement. It went on to say that “any protest in front of Hillel is likely to cause some distress” and condemned antisemitism and Islamophobia. The university was responding to claims by a conservative commentator, Dana Loesch, WISC reported.

New York City’s mayor called on colleges to temper passions. “We should be using this as a teaching moment and social media should not be teaching our children,” Eric Adams said during a meeting with reporters on Tuesday. He suggested prompting students to have conversations about their emotions and news events.

Temple University said inflammatory or hateful rhetoric that disrupts the classroom isn’t appropriate. The institution, in Philadelphia, issued a statement after law-school students walked out of a class chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free,” a phrase that has been used to call for the destruction of Israel, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

An Israeli professor went on leave from La Salle University over a social-media post. Tali Reiner Brodetzki met with the president of the Catholic university after it posted an invite to a Mass calling for “an end to the violence and acts of terrorism against innocent Israelis and Palestinians,” The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Brodetzki objected to characterizing Israel as committing acts of terrorism. La Salle said it used “a poorly worded phrase” and removed the post.

Two New Jersey Jewish schools are requiring college recruiters to pledge to protect their graduates. Torah Academy and the Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls said recruiters will now need to bring a statement from college leaders explaining plans “to protect and maintain the safety and security of our graduates on their campuses as Jews,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported.

Comings and goings

• Anand R. Marri has been named provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Ball State University after serving as interim provost since April.
• Richard D. Freer, a professor of law at Emory University, has been named dean of the School of Law.
• Emily Hurst, deputy director and head of the research and education department for the Health Sciences Library at Virginia Commonwealth University, has been named dean of the Health Sciences and Human Services Library and associate vice provost at the University of Maryland at Baltimore.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.

Footnote

Congratulations to the University of Tulsa, where the largest Starbucks in Oklahoma just opened. The institution described the new java-delivery station as “more than 3,000 square feet of gleaming, coffee-scented space to enjoy a beverage and meet up with friends.”

Where, you might ask, did Tulsa find 3,000 square feet lying around? The library, of course. The university moved a computer lab to a renovated space in its student union to make way for its new caffeine collection.