Students Set Sights Lower As Tuitions Rise

Economics major Seth Anagnostis got a quick lesson in math when it came time to go to college, CBS News correspondent Jerry Bowen reports.

He got accepted at his top choice, Tufts. But he ended up at Rutgers. That made the most dollars and sense.

"It was frustrating getting into your No. 1 choice that you worked so hard to get into high school and then it is right there for you and it's just not a realistic possibility," Anagnostis says.

And he isn't alone, according to a UCLA nationwide survey of this year's college freshmen.

Nearly one-third of the 271,000 freshmen surveyed are attending schools that were not their first choice. That's the highest percentage since 1988.

Of those students who were accepted but didn't go to their first choice college, more than one-third said money was the issue: They couldn't afford it.

"Over the last 30 years, we've seen a precipitous increase in the number of students reporting that they have a major concern about how they're going to finance their college education," says Victor B. Saenz, with the Higher Education Research Institute.

The cost of a college education has soared 35 percent over the last five years, to an average of nearly $13,000 a year at public colleges, and more than $30,000 a year at private schools.

The survey results come as Congress is working on ways to make college more affordable. The House just passed a bill to cut student loan interest rates by half over the next five years. But it's unclear how much that will influence the choice of a school.

What is clear is that finding a way to pay for college is fast becoming an education in itself.