Net Price of College

Amount Students Pay for College has Barely Changed Over Last Decade

Posted on Fri, 10/25/2013 - 09:36

The amount that students actually pay for college — because of increased discounts, grants and tax benefits — has barely changed over the last decade, according to the latest report from the College Board’s Trends in Higher Education research and analysis series.  Trends in College Pricing, a major analysis of college cost and affordability using data from the College Board's Annual Survey of Colleges, reports on the prices charged by colleges and universities in 2013-14, how prices have changed over time, and how they vary within and across types of institutions, states, and regions. It also includes information on the net prices that students and families actually pay after taking financial aid into consideration.

As the report notes, “The story is a complicated one, with different students paying different prices at the same institutions, depending on their financial circumstances; on their academic qualifications, athletic ability, or other characteristics; and on their year or program of study.”

Among the highlights:

College Reality Check: Some Experts Weigh In On The Latest Tool for Families

Posted on Thu, 05/30/2013 - 09:25

There's no shortage of information when it comes to researching colleges -- guidebooks, email, college fairs, blogs, YouTube. In fact, there are so many new sites and tools -- College Score Card, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and their Shopping Sheet (this is a sample) -- that it can be hard to know what’s useful and what’s not. One of the newest tools on the table is College Reality Check, brought to you by a partnership between the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Gates Foundation. With 3600 colleges in its database, the tool aims to allow users to see how these institutions fare with regard to net price, graduation rates, debt rates and more.

We're big believers in information -- that is, good information. So we asked a group of college admission deans and high school college counselors to share their initial thoughts about the value of College Reality Check and how families can best employ the data this new tool provides. Read on to take advantage of their bird's eye view of this newest source of information: