Final answer:
A Python program is provided to calculate and display the projected college tuition costs over the next five years, accounting for a 3% annual increase.
Step-by-step explanation:
Understanding the continual rise of college expenses is critical for students planning their financial future. Yet, there's also a practical aspect to consider, which involves calculating how tuition fees will grow over time. This is where programming can be applied to create a useful tool for projecting future tuition costs.
Let's write a simple program using Python that encapsulates a loop to display the projected semester tuition amount for the next five years, accounting for a 3% yearly increase:
tuition = 8000
increase_rate = 0.03
for year in range(1, 6):
tuition *= (1 + increase_rate)
print(f"In {year} year{('s' if year != 1 else '')}, the tuition will be ${tuition:.2f}.")
Upon running this program, students will receive output that details their potential tuition expenses over the coming five-year period, helping to better prepare financially for the rising cost of education.