As college-tuition fees increase, students are paying a bigger share of their own bill, according to a study of higher-education spending trends.
The study, called the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity and Accountability, was released last month and based its research on data colleges reported to the federal government.
The Delta Project is a nonprofit organization seeking "to help improve college affordability by controlling costs and improving productivity," according to its Web site.
The organization also found the portion of college budgets that go toward instruction has declined as administrative costs have increased.
Only about one million students attend private research universities, like Penn, which spend the most money per student.
At the other end of the spectrum, six million students attend community colleges, which spend the least per student.
In 2006, students at private colleges that offer bachelor's degrees covered 63.5 percent of their tuition after scholarships and tuition discounts.
That same year, the study found, spending on instruction decreased at private institutions.
Between 1995 and 2006, the percentage of the budget going toward instruction at private colleges declined from 40.7 percent to 38.9 percent.
An even bigger decline was seen at private research universities, where the percentage decreased from 62.3 percent in 1996 to 57.9 percent in 2006.
Bill Schilling, director of Financial Aid, said the University is doing everything it can to make education more affordable.
"We have begun to eliminate loans for families under certain income levels," he said. "And we've been doing things in the last several years to modify our treatment of outside scholarships so they go first toward reducing student-loan requirements."
But he said he could not comment about the allocation of tuition toward educational versus administrative funds.
He noted that last year's increase in tuition and fees was the smallest in seven years, going up 4.5 percent to $37,526.
Even as tuition is increasing, "net tuition costs for students receiving financial aid have not been going up," Schilling said.
