Students had a higher cost of living increase than the average American, according to the Kansas State University Economics Club student price index.
The 2024 Student Price Index measured an increase of 3.1% over the past year, compared to just 2.4% rise in the Consumer Price Index. The inflation rate is trending down, however, after reaching a 40-year peak in 2022.
The Student Price Index measures expenses unique to students like tuition, books and on-campus housing. It also includes things that are measured in typical inflation models like groceries, gasoline and internet data, as well as some products students are likely to buy like beer, pizza and tickets to college sporting events.
A couple items showed high rates of inflation — like beer and Greek housing — but overall, the economics club characterized the increase in prices in 2023 as “mild.”
“It is nice to see the prices of many things not increase substantially," said Nathan Stanley, a K-State junior who worked on the report. "I find it easier to travel with gas prices being below $3 a gallon and when I first started taking economics classes, I heard a lot about high inflation rates. It’s great to see that K-Staters are not suffering too much from inflation.”
But historically, students have been more burdened by inflation than a typical household. Since the K-State Economics Club began collecting data in 2002, the student price index has increased more than 150%, while the goods typically measured for inflation calculations is about 75%.
Nationally, inflation rose to the highest rate since 1980 in June 2022, when the rate was about 9.1%. It cooled off by the summer of 2023 and has since hovered around 3%. The U.S. Federal Reserve aims for a long-run inflation rate of 2%. The Student Price Index is intended to give students insights into how inflation is calculated.
“We get the chance to demonstrate how a price index is calculated, and our bundle attempts to mirror what the BLS does with the Consumer Price Index,” said Danuel Kuester, faculty adviser to the economics club. “This is a fun way to get members involved with the club and we get to demonstrate how a price index works and is calculated.”
Rate of inflation by category
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Gasoline: -22.62%.
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Groceries: +4.37%.
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Tuition: +2.80%.
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Beer: +22.53%.
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Pizza: +1.75%.
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Off-campus housing: +2.78%.
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On-campus housing (dorm): + 5.01%.
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On-campus housing (apartments): unchanged.
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On-campus housing (Greek): +20.0%.
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Textbooks: -7.12%.
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Movies: unchanged.
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ICAT: unchanged.
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Internet: unchanged.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Student inflation up similar to trends: Kansas State Econ club