Various other sources give much higher numbers, like up 179% from 1999 to 2020 [1] or up 110% from 1998 - 2018 [2]. So I'm not sure what's going on with the art

Various other sources give much higher numbers, like up 179% from 1999 to 2020 [1] or up 110% from 1998 - 2018 [2]. So I'm not sure what's going on with the article. It could be that they're deflating by wage increases, or showing the change relative to overall inflation, or something like that. [1] https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-year https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-year [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/how-much-college-tuition-has-increased-from-1988-to-2018.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/how-much-college-tuition-has... Edit: I would have assumed the OP article was based on this series: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SAE1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SAE1