Presidential wanna-be and part-time Senator John Kerry is proposing that the fed cap state tuition prices. He intends to use federal tax dollars to provide incentive for states to keep tuition increases in line with the rate of inflation. There's just one problem. Tuition hasn't really been increasing.

Kerry repeatedly notes on the stump that tuition is up 35 percent over the last three years. Some analysts dispute that, noting that financial aid has risen as well. [...]

At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, fees rose 60 percent between the 2001-2002 school year and the 2002-2003 year, to $6,500. At the same time, tuition stayed at $1,714. (None of this includes the cost of room and board.) [...]

"Kerry's cynical attacks are at odds with the facts that more Americans have college degrees than ever before, and the amount students pay in tuition costs is down by a third since 1998," said spokesman Steve Schmidt, citing reports that growing financial aid funds have kept the actual cost of college paid by students relatively modest.

When you factor in the increasing financial aid students are receiving, net tuition has actually decreased. But that doesn't stop Kerry. There's votes to buy and he's got his hand in the federal kitty.