We all know that college tuition/fees have gone through the roof in many (most? all?) cases. But as my undergraduate class prepares for a big reunion, organizers have been asking for some memorabilia. I found my senior year college course catalog, which I will happily donate. In the front were a few pages of fees. Don’t know whether to laugh or cry! Let’s not get bogged down in the value of the dollar back then and now, or the relative cost of living, etc… Let’s just, for kicks and giggles, look at what we paid to go to college versus what it cost now. I’ll start. Here is my Vassar college year’s tuition and dorm fees, then and what it is now (and I was so relieved then to have a NYS merit scholarship to help defray the cost):
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I graduated from Cornell in 1992. Tuition was $16k for the endowed colleges and $5,344 for room and board.
Today the COA for the endowed colleges is $88k.
This Life article from 1960 includes information on expenses: LIFE - Google Books. The annual cost for most private colleges appears to have hovered around or somewhat above $2,000.
UT-Austin was $4 per credit hour in the '80s. My total tuition would be $60/semester. Then there were a couple of hundred dollars of fees. That was it. So room and board was really the only expense to speak of.
That’s why I didn’t apply to a single other school in the country. I got to go to one of the top engineering schools for peanuts. I remember being shocked that my high school boyfriend’s cost to go to MIT was over $10,000 a year.
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Virginia Tech - civil engineering
fall 1990 - tuition was $1200/semester or $2400/yr. Room and board roughly doubled it.
Fall 1993 - tuition was $2000/semester or $4000/yr. I lived off campus. But it went up a lot when I was there.
Below is the cost today. Tuition and room & board looks like it’s $34,000 for engineers. We didn’t have to pay anything extra in the day.
I had to correct my Vassar post above. It’s not the freshman year catalog. It’s my senior year! so freshman year costs were even less expensive!
I started freshman year at William and Mary in 1983 for $7540 for the year. My son’s freshman year starting 2023 was $64,067. Those are both OOS rates including tuition, room, board, and other interesting fees.
I graduated from Hendrix College. I distinctly remember costs from my senior year (mid 80s) being $6,000 all in. Just looked - it’s now $55k all in.
I also remember that our mailbox rental was $1 per year. And we called the mailroom lady, ”Flash,” because she was so s-l-o-w.
I went to U of Hi, U of OR and UCDavis Law. I don’t have any more documents on the costs and tuition and can’t find them online dating that far back.
My H was able to work part time on campus while attending the U of HI and over 7 years pay his way through college in the 1960s. He learned a lot from his varied jobs and will tell us stories about some of those jobs.
Bucknell University’s comprehensive fee (tuition, fees, room, and board) when I started in 1966 was $2,600. Same thing this year is $84,736.
Even private school tuitions have exploded. When my kids started private H’s around year 2000, tuition was <$10,000/yr. Now it’s nearly $30,000/year!
I looked it up - " $2,600 in 1966 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $25,326.33 today."
Ohio University, 1970-1973. My costs all in to attend were under $1000 a year as an instate student.
It’s just over $27,000 a year now…which is still a great bargain, in my opinion!
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Central College in Iowa, mid 1990s- my mom says all in sticker price was $12k. After scholarships and aid, my freshman year was $3000 and sophomore $6000. I was NMF and had need.
DD was accepted there in 2017 and cost was $42k and auto merit took her to $24k. They have since cut tuition making it $34k all in to start, but also cut the merit.
All I know is that I got merit & FAid and did work study and got govt student loans. When I graduated after 1 years U of HI, 3 years of U of OR & 3 years UC Davis law school, I owed $3000 and had $3000 in my checking acct. I was advised to pay $90/quarter to build my credit, so I did that (my interest on my savings acct I moved the funds to was higher than the 3-4% interest on the loan). I wanted to just pay off the loan immediately but followed the advice to pay it off quarterly.
I think my tuition was <$5k/yr and housing was very inexpensive. I think our 2 bedroom place in Davis was $300/month or so, Eugene was inexpensive too.
Here is a table of UC tuition and fees from 1986-1987 to 2022-2023:
Here is a CPI inflation calculator:
As an example from the above, the typical* in-state tuition and fees at a UC in 1986-1987 was $1,345. Using the CPI calculator, that amount in September 1986 is equivalent to $3,622.57 in September 2022, when typical* in-state tuition and fees at a UC was $14,671, or about 4 times as high as the inflation-adjusted amount from 1986-1987.
*including weighted average of campus-based fees.
Attended UCSB (Class of 1991). We paid $550 per quarter and then it was increased to around $600 and there were student protests due to the “greedy” UC Regents!!! 
University of Michigan in-state tuition senior year (fall 79-80):
My dorm single was $1,200/year. I paid for my freshman first semester with my bookstore earnings. I received a full-ride scholarship with book stipend after that and never paid another dime to the U.
Total four-year out-of-pocket cost to earn my degree at U-M was approximately $1,300.
Today in-state:
Our son has earned his B.S. and M.S. for “free” and will start his no-cost PhD next year compliments of Uncle Sam.
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My sisters both got merit scholarships to get their master’s in special education degrees as out of state students at University of Michigan. I think their only out of pocket costs were travel expenses, but I’m not positive.