The first chart compares standard undergraduate annual tuition and fees charged by major U.S. public, U.S. private and Canadian public 4-year college, showing both current U.S. dollars during the years from 1940 to 2000 and U.S. dollars adjusted to the year 2000 by using the U.S. Consumer Price Index series.
Tuition at the University of Toronto tracked close to inflation rates during the entire period. The University of Iowa had rapid increases in tuition during the 1950s and then tracked close to inflation rates since that time. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), among the most expensive of the private U.S. educational institutions throughout the 20th century, had continual large tuition increases, dipping slightly below inflation rates only during the World War II years.
Over the 60-year period charted, the inflation-adjusted, long term, annual increases in tuition at these institutions were 0.4 percent for the University of Toronto, 1.4 percent for the University of Iowa, and 2.1 percent for MIT. Other institutions in the same categories differ in details but not in general patterns. The results of the trends are that over the 60 years shown, adjusted for inflation, the tuition at the University of Iowa increased by a factor of 2.3 and that at MIT by a factor of 3.6, while tuition at the University of Toronto rose only about 30 percent.