State public college tuition and fees have risen sharply in recent decades. In this paper we investigate how young Americans absorbed this increase and how it affected their post-schooling financial behaviors. Exploiting state-cohort variation in tuition increases, we find that recent student cohorts accommodated tuition shocks not by forgoing college education, but instead by amassing more debt. The rise in tuition and student debt in turn contributed to a sharp decline in homeownership which was concentrated in suburban and urban areas, especially in the US Northeast and West, and in higher-priced housing markets and locations in which younger adults make up a bigger share of the residential population. Thus tuition-hiking states can expect to see a response not through a decline in workforce skills, but through weaker future spending and wealth accumulation among young consumers.

州立公立大学的学杂费近几十年来急剧上升。在本文中，我们调查了年轻的美国人如何吸收这种增长以及它如何影响他们的学后财务行为。利用各州的学费差异增加，我们发现最近的学生群体不是通过放弃大学教育，而是通过积累更多的债务来应对学费冲击。学费和学生债务的增加反过来导致住房所有权的急剧下降，住房所有权集中在郊区和城市地区，特别是在美国东北和西部地区，以及高价住房市场和年轻人占较大比例的地区居住人口比例。因此，学费高涨的国家可以期望不会因劳动力技能下降而做出回应，