Huntington: Cost of school keeps rising

Huntington: Cost of school keeps rising

COLUMBUS

Parents with three children in elementary, middle and high school can expect to pay as much as $3,000 for school supplies and extracurricular activities for the 2015-16 school year, according to the Huntington Bank Backpack Index released Wednesday.

Since Huntington first introduced its index in 2007, the cost of supplies and extracurricular activities has increased 85 percent for elementary-school students, 78 percent for middle-school students and 57 percent for high-school students.

The double-digit price trend is continuing for the 2015-16 school year with an almost 10 percent increase for high-school students because many juniors and seniors take several college entrance exams. Only elementary and middle-school prices saw a slight stabilization with a 1 percent and 2.5 percent cost increase, respectively.

Average US vehicle is 11.5 years old

DETROIT

In the age of Apple’s CarPlay, a lot of cars on the road still have tape decks.

The average vehicle in the U.S. now is a record 11.5 years old, according to consulting firm IHS Automotive, a sign of the increased reliability of today’s vehicles and the lingering impact of the sharp drop in new-car sales during the recession.

Drivers behind the wheel of older cars aren’t enjoying some of the latest advanced safety features or infotainment systems that effectively turn cars into cellphones on wheels. Then again, they don’t have to worry about hackers finding their way in to the car’s computer network through the cassette or CD player.

IHS said U.S. registrations grew to a record 257.9 million cars and trucks this year, up 2 percent from a year earlier.

Lew gets more than 1M comments on currency redesign

WASHINGTON

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Wednesday he’s gotten more than a million responses to his request for comments on how U.S. currency should be redesigned and recommendations for what woman should become the first female on U.S. paper money in more than a century.

Lew said it has been a “remarkable outpouring” of everything from tweets and retweets to handwritten letters. He said among the “interesting commentary” are suggestions to replace some of the buildings now on the currency with more-direct depictions of the democracy theme that will be used in the redesign.

Staff/wire reports