You can forgive Grinnell College students and their parents for wistfully thinking about the good old days, when tuition increased only 5 percent or 6 percent a year at the prestigious Iowa school.



The campus is abuzz with plans for what the college calls a 12.6 percent "market adjustment" that will be phased in over four years, starting this fall with incoming freshmen.



The proposed increase comes at a time when Grinnell's tuition and fees--$29,030 this school year--are already nearly $10,000 a year higher than average for Iowa's private, four-year colleges and universities. The cost of a Grinnell education is $20,000 a year higher than the cost at Iowa's three public universities.



Grinnell President Russell Osgood said the planned increase would bring the school into line with the tuition charged by Grinnell's main competitors for students--Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., and Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio.



"We've been reporting a significantly lower tuition than the schools we immediately overlap and compete with," Osgood said. "At the same time, we are the highest-cost school in the group."



The added revenue will also allow Grinnell to increase the amount of money that goes toward financial aid, thereby helping students from families of modest means graduate with a smaller college loan debt, officials said.



Ten percent of Grinnell's 1,500 students come from families with incomes high enough that the students do not qualify for financial aid, the school said. That means those students will feel the full effect of the higher tuition.