South Florida Students Pay More For Their Education

South Florida students are scrambling to find ways to pay for ever-increasing college costs — or lowering their dreams of a higher education.

Ultimately, many students are stuck with the bill as their parents have endured layoffs, reduced working hours and shrinking paychecks during economic hard times. A new national study finds students paying more since the Great Recession hit in late 2007.

At the same time, South Florida's public universities — Florida Atlantic and Florida International — are requiring students to pay 15 percent more in tuition this fall. That's more than 12 times South Florida's consumer price index increase of 1.2 percent in the last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.