Hard Lessons In Tuition Hikes

This is the 11th in a month-long series of reports called "Making Ends Meet" about how families are coping with the tough economy, unemployment and smaller retirement accounts.

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It's a summer of discontent as state college students in Maryland face rising tuition bills this fall.

Dan Mote is president of the University of Maryland, where, as CBS News Correspondent Joie Chen reports, cuts in the state budget are forcing tuition up a whopping 21 percent over last year.

"We've gotten to the point where students and their parents can no longer afford to pay,'' says Mote.

So what happens to them?

"They take two and three jobs, or they come parttime," says Mote.

Paul Dickens, a 19-year-old biology major, cobbles together his tuition through a mix of money from his parents, federal grants, loans and a 20-hour a week campus job.

"Every single time tuition goes up, that's like an hour less you have to study, every percent an hour less per week cause you have got to make more money," says Dickens.

And Maryland is not alone. Tuition has gone up at state colleges and universities across the country. And to make matters worse, over the last 20 years, state and federal financial aid has been covering less and less.

"It's one thing to go up. But to go up so drastically," says Dickens' mother Paula.

She worries, not only about him, but also about his brothers: one in college and the other a year away.

She and her husband Johnny already pay as much tuition as they can, so their kids have no choice but to borrow more money.

"You feel for them, you feel for these young people graduating and overwhelming debt," says Paula Dickens.

By the time he graduates, Paul Dickens will owe more than $30,000.

"I don't see this train changing direction for the moment," says Mote. "I don't see the states realizing that this isn't a good course to follow."

Mote worries that as states shift more of the financial burden to students, it will become harder for many to realize the American dream.

"Tuitions going up, financial aid going down - not expanding nearly enough, and the opportunities are more and more limited all the time," says Mote.

Paul Dickens' dad Johnny agrees.

"You don't want to deter anyone because of the cost factor," he says. "You don't want that to be something only for the privileged.

"You want everybody as a citizen of this country to have the opportunity for higher education to achieve the American dream."

For now most schools seem able to meet the financial needs of the poorest students. But for almost everyone else, rising tuition means more time working instead of studying, more debts ballooning with no end in sight.