US: 'Wall of shame' for costly colleges

Colleges beware: One more tuition hike and your name might just end up on a new federal Wall of Shame, writes Noah Grynberg in USA Today. The College Opportunity and Affordability Act, signed by President George W Bush on 14 August, will require the Department of Education to post online the colleges and universities with the highest percentage increases in tuition and fees in a three-year period. It also calls for the department to list the 5% of colleges with the highest overall sticker prices.

Those lists will be posted by 1 July 2011, on the National Center for Education Statistics' College Navigator website.

The new law goes into effect as college costs nationally continue to trend upward. Forty-three states received a grade of 'F' for affordability of public higher education from the independent National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in a 2006 report, up from 36 in 2004.
Full report on the USA Today site