<p>When my older D started at Colgate they had a plan like that, but I think you had to prepay your tuition to get the fixed price.</p>
<p>But with the vast numbers of kids applying due to the cyclical baby boom and kids from overseas wanting to attend US schools, college today for most of our kids has became a sellers’ market. Schools can pick and choose more, demand higher stats and don’t have to commit to things like keeping tuition at set levels or low. </p>
<p>Oddly the financial crisis cuts both ways, schools, especially state schools need money. If you’re a full pay, and you “shop around” you can get into a somewhat better, especially state, school than your stats would have allowed before. But if you make that “bargain”, you have to accept that it may not be a financial bargain compared to staying in your own state.</p>
<p>Remember that tuition has and will continue to go up everywhere. Most of the schools on the top 10 list were in California and there some schools added a 12% increase on top of an already announced 10% increase. At the UCs they added a 9.6% increase over an 8% increase the year before.</p>