It is no secret that we have a higher education affordability problem in the United States. The staggering costs can amount to $80,000 per year at private colleges and universities and $30,000 per year at public institutions. Who can afford that? Yet the true cost of college is typically much less than that because of financial aid. The real problem is that students from lower-income families still face charges far greater than they can afford even after accounting for financial aid.
In my forthcoming book on the crisis in college pricing, my research team used net price calculators at 200 randomly chosen four-year residential institutions to estimate how much colleges actually charge students at different income levels.