A new federal study has concluded that the average family in Hawaii pays a smaller share of its income for tuition at a public college than families in any other state.

And while hefty tuition increases this fall at the University of Hawaii might cost the state its top spot, the school remains a comparative bargain.

The study was done by the General Accounting Office, the congressional investigative agency. It used average in-state college tuition costs and median household income for all 50 states to calculate what portion of a family's income is spent on tuition.

Nationwide, the study concluded the average family spends 9 percent of its income on tuition. In Hawaii, the figure was 3.6 percent - lowest in the nation.

The highest cost was in Vermont, where tuition amounts to 15.4 percent of the median family income.

The Hawaii figure was low for two reasons: The average tuition, $1,524, was lowest in the nation while the median income, $42,255, was third highest.

UH administrators were not surprised by the findings.

"I've always said it was something Hawaii should be proud of," said Colleen Sathre, UH vice president for planning and policy. "Higher education here has always been perceived as a very important thing culturally."

Low tuitions, she said, are essential to maintaining access to higher education.

But tuition took a leap this year at UH. Spurred by the state budget crisis and a new accounting method in which tuition is not put into the state's general fund but kept in the school's coffers, UH raised tuition at all campuses.

At the main campus at Manoa, for example, tuition increased by 50 percent, from $1,534 to $2,304 a year. Next year, it is to go up an additional 23 percent.

At this year's rate, Hawaii's college cost would not be the lowest in the nation. But even assuming no tuition increases in other states and no increase in the state's median income, Hawaii still would be among the most affordable four or five states in the nation.

"I think Hawaii will stay pretty reasonable," said Joseph J. Eglin Jr., who helped write the GAO report. "Their intent is to keep tuition low. How much the state supports public colleges has a lot to do with what tuitions are."

Sathre agreed. "I don't know what's going to happen in other states, but I expect we would still be at or near the bottom next year."

The GAO study was a follow-up to one last month on college affordability. That study found that from 1980-1994, college tuitions soared by 234 percent. During the same period, median household income went up 82 percent and the consumer price index rose 74 percent.

That study also found that tuition covered less of the cost of educating university students in Hawaii than in any other state.

The GAO studies were requested by lawmakers unhappy with the rising cost of higher education, particularly at state-supported schools.

"This study shows that access to higher education is getting more and more out of reach for working and middle class Americans," said Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, D-Ill., who released the state-by-state study.

She promised further investigation of "why college tuition is rising so rapidly and what the federal government can most appropriately do about this problem."

The GAO's Eglin pointed out that the study offers only a "sticker price" of the schools and does not take into account the amount of financial aid available, which can dramatically lower costs.