Private Colleges Have Gotten More Affordable

No, honestly, its true. I learned about this on Planet Money's show The Real Price Of College  

The actual net cost of tuition at private non-profit colleges has gone down over the past 10 years when accounting for inflation.   

The College Board has a nice chart with the data.


In the 2003-2004 school year the net cost of tuition was $13,600 on average and now for 2013-2014 its down to $12,460.   Both those figures are in 2013 dollars.

The published list price has instead gone up from $24,070 to $30,090 over the same period.   Net price and list price are quite different at private schools due to the hefty financial aid and scholarships that are often offered to a majority of students.

Of course this is all inflation adjusted dollars so another way to say it is that private tuition has not gone up as fast as inflation in the past decade.    The nominal cost in 2003 would have been about $10,700 so it has gone up in nominal terms.   But that $10,700 is worth $13,600 today because of 10 years of inflation.   So in today's dollars you're spending less out of pocket on average for tuition than you would have 10 years ago.

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Best of Blogs for Week of June 27th

Every Friday afternoon I share some of the more interesting or notable posts that I have seen in the personal finance blogs and other sources for the past week

Moneybox has a graphic comparing wages for occupations Why You Should Have Gone to Med School, in One Gigantic Chart



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Residential Electricity Costs by State - 2014

I discussed this topic in 2011 but the numbers have changed since then.

Nationally electricity averages 12.41 cents per kWh.     I live in the Northwest and our electricity is relatively cheap here.     The US Energy Information Administration has state level averages on electric costs.   Note that these are just state level averages and your electric utility may charge more or less and your rates may vary depending on time of use or the amount of power you use.

Here's the list of all states for April 2014 :

Alabama	11.79
Alaska	19.03
Arizona	11.97
Arkansas	9.75
California	10.17
Colorado	12.19
Connecticut	19.87
Delaware	13.33
D.C.	13.16
Florida	11.76
Georgia	11.49
Hawaii	38.08
Idaho	9.55
Illinois	11.77
Indiana	11.9
Iowa	11.71
Kansas	12.62
Kentucky	10.72
Louisiana	10.12
Maine	15.38
Maryland	14.08
Massachusetts	18.19
Michigan	14.62
Minnesota	11.97
Mississippi	11.87
Missouri	10.55
Montana	9.98
Nebraska	10.14
Nevada	13.57
New Hampshire	17.54
New Jersey	15.72
New Mexico	11.82
New York	19.56
North Carolina	11.84
North Dakota	9.14
Ohio	12.4
Oklahoma	11.05
Oregon	10.37
Pennsylvania	13.12
Rhode Island	18.26
South Carolina	12.52
South Dakota	10.26
Tennessee	10.81
Texas	12.07
Utah	10.2
Vermont	18.07
Virginia	11.08
Washington	8.75
West Virginia	9.56
Wisconsin	13.77
Wyoming	10.24

The 5 cheapest states are :

Washington	8.75
North Dakota	9.14
Idaho	9.55
West Virginia	9.56
Arkansas	9.75

And the 5 most expensive are :

Hawaii	38.08
Connecticut	19.87
New York	19.56
Alaska	19.03
Rhode Island	18.26

Electricity is cheap in the Northwest due to large hydroelectric power installations such as Grand Coulee Dam.     Hawaii and Alaska have expensive power due to their remote locations and having to rely more on fossil fuels to generate electricity.

Now since I've got the numbers from 2011 and the newer 2014 numbers we can compare the changes.    Based on a 3 year period the compound annual growth of rates for each state are :

Alabama	2%
Alaska	3%
Arizona	3%
Arkansas	3%
California	-11%
Colorado	3%
Connecticut	3%
Delaware	-2%
District of Columbia	0%
Florida	0%
Georgia	2%
Hawaii	5%
Idaho	7%
Illinois	0%
Indiana	4%
Iowa	4%
Kansas	6%
Kentucky	5%
Louisiana	4%
Maine	0%
Maryland	0%
Massachusetts	8%
Michigan	5%
Minnesota	3%
Mississippi	3%
Missouri	4%
Montana	2%
Nebraska	4%
Nevada	4%
New Hampshire	2%
New Jersey	-1%
New Mexico	4%
New York	4%
North Carolina	4%
North Dakota	3%
Ohio	3%
Oklahoma	3%
Oregon	3%
Pennsylvania	-1%
Rhode Island	4%
South Carolina	3%
South Dakota	5%
Tennessee	3%
Texas	2%
Utah	6%
Vermont	3%
Virginia	2%
Washington	2%
West Virginia	0%
Wisconsin	2%
Wyoming	5%

The largest increases:

Massachusetts	8%
Idaho	7%
Utah	6%
Kansas	6%
Michigan	5%

And the smallest increases (which are actually decreases) :

California	-11%
Delaware	-2%
New Jersey	-1%
Pennsylvania	-1%
Illinois	-0.37%

So thats interesting that the rates dropped so much in California.    I haven't dug into that enough to find out why its down but I suspect its due to lower natural gas prices.   This report THE FUTURE OF ELECTRICITY PRICES IN CALIFORNIA points out that natural gas accounts for 60% of local CA electricity production and gas prices have been down in recent years.
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5% Cash Back Promo Credit Card Categories for Q3 2014

Here are the different categories that my credit cards offer 5% cash back for this upcoming Q3 period (July to September):

Discover : Gas stations
Chase : Gas stations, Kohl's
Citicard : Hilton Portfolio, car rental agencies, movies and theme parks.


Nothing too exciting for me here.   Gas stations would be good but we already got the Sallie Mae card which gives 5% on gas stations normally.  
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