The College Board just released its annual report on Trends in College Pricing . As expected, tuition costs at four-year public institutions increased 7 percent for the 2005-2006 school year; at private schools they went up nearly 6 percent.

But remember that they're calculated off a higher base. For example, tuition costs at public universities rose at double-digit rates over the past two academic years -- 10 percent in 2004-2005 and 13 percent in 2003-2004.

Over the past five years, the price tag for tuition at public universities has risen 57 percent, to $5,491 on average today. Room and board has increased 44 percent over five years, to $12,127.

College Board officials are quick to point out that these are sticker prices, and that the net cost of going to college is less when you take into account financial aid in the form of grants and tax credits. However, they concede that the net cost as a percentage of income has increased significantly for those on the lower end of the income spectrum.

Room and board and tuition are only some of the costs students face. We're not even taking into account books and school fees, let alone all the other incidentals of life -- car insurance and maintenance costs, health insurance and medical fees, cell phone charges, Internet access, clothing, computers, gas, pizza. ...

Is it time for students to picket at the campus quad? They can hold signs that say, "Decrease our tuition, so we can reach fruition!" Or we can just leave it to the younger folks to come up with more catchy slogans.

But the point is that this annual escalation of college costs is just not sustainable, and it's resulting in students' having to take on ever-increasing debt loads. The problem is on a mass scale: Some two-thirds of students attending four-year colleges today have taken on student loan debt. At graduation, the average debt load is nearly $20,000.

In a recent survey , college presidents were asked, "How concerned are you about the amount of debt students, in general, are taking on to pay for their education?" Some 86 percent of them expressed concern, with 60 percent indicating they were downright "very concerned."

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