MANKATO — Want a good laugh? Go up to any student at Minnesota State University right now — go ahead, walk right up to them — and ask them how much they think tuition has gone up during the past few years.

Chances are the response will look and sound a lot like the one Kari Kettner, a junior mass communications major from Nicollet, yielded.

“Gosh ... I don’t ... Maybe 10 percent?” she said.

Try 95 percent since 1999.

“Oh my gosh!” she said. Truly. “For real? I definitely wouldn’t have thought that.”

Kettner and her response — her guess, her indignation — in many ways say a lot about the framing of the debate surrounding tuition. In the vast majority of cases, college tuition is a problem for people with little knowledge of how the system works, and little clout with which to change it.

They come to college with big dreams and they want to pursue them, and in many cases it just seems so much easier to accept the dollar figure on the bottom line of that tuition bill. Accept it and move on with the real business of higher education, and a few years down the road, when the big paychecks start coming in from the “real job,” the student loan repayment booklet can just go on top of the bills pile.

The problem is that as tuition goes up and financial aid remains stagnant, the amount of borrowing needed to finance a college education goes up dramatically, and many more graduates leave campus on graduation day with a diploma in one hand, and into unimaginable debt.

Worse, many whose only option is to take out high-interest loans are simply choosing to not attend college. Others resort to credit cards.

Lately, however, the political climate has produced a few areas for optimism. The two leading candidates for governor, incumbent Tim Pawlenty and Democratic challenger Mike Hatch, have presented plans that can ease the burden for some students. And students during the past few years have, in big numbers, voiced opposition during lobbying trips to the Capitol.

Numbers don’t lie

During the 1999-2000 academic year, tuition and fees at MSU totaled $2,996. This year, it is $5,840, an increase of nearly 95 percent.

Across the river at South Central College, tuition is a bit cheaper, but the increases have been similar. In 1999-2000, tuition and fees — based on an average full-time credit load of 15 — was $2,287.50. This year, an 84 percent increase later, tuition and fees for 15 credits runs $4,222.50.

This kind of inflation hasn’t gone unnoticed. College students may be transient in nature and normally don’t remain college students for more than four or five years, that doesn’t mean tuition hikes don’t hurt.

A few years when those hikes were especially harsh — one year saw MSU’s tuition jump 14 percent — students showed up in force to protest.

Two years ago for the annual lobby day of colleges and universities from the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, hundreds of students surrounded the Capitol steps. There were placards reading “Books or food, don’t make us choose,” and chants saying “Two, four, six, eight, we’re the future of this state!”

Shazad Anwer, Student Senate president at the time, said, “This is a start ... This was something special.”

This year’s Student Senate is trying to gauge the pulse of the student body on the issue of tuition. Brett Fleck, a student senator and finance-economics student from New Ulm, said tuition remains one of the top issues for students along with textbook prices and, at MSU specifically, campus recreation facilities.

“We can find out from the students what they think we should be doing, and then we can take that to the leaders,” Fleck said.

As far as what he thinks about his government’s handling of tuition, his editorial in MSU’s student newspaper is telling.

“ ... why hasn’t something been done about it? The answer to this question is somewhat complicated but it pretty much boils down to the fact that we continually elect leaders at the state and federal level who refuse to own up to the issue. While they claim they have done their best to increase financial aid available to students, the heart of the issue remains untouched.

“It’s kind of hard to put anything together that’s real strong,” he said this week, “being that people are cycled through the system so fast.”

Adds Kettner, “Most people just kind of accept it because at a university there’s a lot of people, and many feel inferior and don’t really say anything.”

View from the frontlines

The price of everything goes up. That’s life. But the increases to tuition have far outpaced inflation and changed the way higher education is financed.

“For years, tuition for students was never an issue. Even if the student didn’t get any grant money, they could still get a student loan to cover their tuition,” said Jayne Dinse, South Central College’s financial aid director. “That’s no longer the case. We’re seeing more and more students borrowing. Our student loan rate has gone through the roof.”

Whether it be students themselves or their parents taking out the loans, Dinse says, SCC students last year borrowed $5.2 million in Stafford Loans to attend college. That number was up $694,000 from the previous year.

Loans up

Borrowing is up at MSU, as well. After students have exhausted their Pell Grant option and their Stafford Loan (which all financial aid applicants can get), they many times still cannot cover their tuition and fees costs.

Those students, if their parents can’t help, are advised to take out alternative loans. At MSU last year, students borrowed $4.6 million in alternative loans. This year they’re already at $7 million. They typically have higher interest rates and oftentimes students must begin to repay them immediately, unlike the Stafford loans, which delay repayment until after graduation.

“Unfortunately they’re borrowing through alternative loan programs because the federal loan programs have not increased their limits,” said Sandra Loerts, MSU’s financial aid director.

Pell Grants, the main grant that most students have access to has not seen a significant increase in years. The limit is $4,050. Stafford loan limits also have not been increased. Minnesota state grants help, but the maximum any student can get is $6,258, and whatever a student receives in Pell Grant help is automatically deducted from the state grant.

Even the behavior of parents — and their saving habits — appear to be changing.

“I don’t believe today’s parents have saved as much,” Dinse said. “I’ll have parents come in that make well over $100,000 and have saved nothing for their child’s education. As a result students as well as parents are having to borrow money.”