A personal sample of size 1. Harvard just upped its charges. Tuition, room and board, and fees broke through the $50,000 per year mark for the 2010-11 school year. They’re at $50,724.
My Harvard tuition in 1958 (my first year) was $1,250 and became $1,520 by 1962 (my last year). Room and board was $400-$500, for a total of $1,650 to $2,020. This makes an inflation rate of something like 6.65 percent, continuously compounded, from those fun-filled years to the present blissful ones. The CPI rate is 3.87 percent from 1958 to 2010. For Harvard students or whoever is paying these bills, which one is the true rate?
