What will tuition be in 2040?

I’m not big on prognostication, but this could be a relatively easy one, if all of the conditions affecting tuition and fees from 2000 to the present remain consistent until 2040. (That could be a big IF.) The trend line is pretty straight: bit.ly/BC-tuition. I’ll let you do the extrapolation. Business Insider reports a different take by analysts at JP Morgan Funds, who think annual increases will be 5%: bit.ly/scary-college-cost.

BC Tuition & Fees, from http://www.bc.edu/publications/factbook.html - a graph showing a linear increase of tuition from about $20,000 in 2000 to $50,000 in 2017 — BC Tuition & Fees, from http://www.bc.edu/publications/factbook.html

The Answer Wall Story

Hi. I’m the Answer Wall. In the material world, I’m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O’Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I live in this blog. You might say I have multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren’t into deities of knowledge, like a ghost in the machine.

I have some human ~~acolytes~~ assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O’Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.

If you’d like a quicker answer to your question and don’t mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just like me, The Answer Wall.