First, the good news. This year, the cost of college tuition rose relatively slowly. According to a new report by the College Board, at 4-year public institutions, the sticker price for an in-state student increased just 2.9 percent, the smallest hike in more than three decades. At private schools, it was a somewhat faster 3.8 percent. Here's what those bumps, on the far right in the graph below, look like in comparison to the previous nine years.

Now the bad news. There's not much reason to think that this slowdown is anything other than temporary. The College Board likes to argue that college price increases are "cyclical," meaning they move with the economy. When the U.S. falters and state budgets get cut, or endowments plummet, colleges raise prices. When the country gets back to health, price hikes become more modest. Right now, we're just at the bottom of the cycle. Unless something significant changes in academia, we'll likely see tuition rates take off on another gallop.

But "cyclical" is also a sort of funny word here. Most things that are cyclical rise and fall with U.S. growth. Take unemployment. When there's a recession, unemployment jumps. But it goes back down as soon as the economy starts humming again. College price increases, on the other hand, are more or less permanent.