“A lot of people think we can solve the problem with more financial aid, but I think we have to have some cost containment. For all the talk about reinventing higher education, I don’t see any results.”

With room and board, the average total cost of attendance at a public four-year college is now $15,213, the report found. At private nonprofit colleges, which enroll about one in five college students nationally, the average total cost of attendance is now $35,636.

Over the last 30 years, college costs have risen steadily, especially at four-year public universities, once considered the affordable route to higher education. At such universities, the last decade’s increases, adjusted for inflation, have been the steepest.

At private universities and public two-year institutions, the rate of increase has slowed over the last decade. The 4.4 percent rise in tuition at private colleges last year, for example, was smaller than in past years, when it has been about 6 percent.

In releasing the figures, the College Board, a membership organization made up of schools, colleges, universities and education organizations, put a bright face on the issue. Sandy Baum, the senior policy analyst who wrote the report, “Trends in College Pricing 2009,” said the findings were not as bad as they might have been, since in times of recession, tuition increases are often “really, really steep.”