The crisis of college affordability is in the air. The agony of the 2017 college admissions cycle just came to an end; many students and families just spent a harrowing weekend figuring out how they will afford the bills. And New York State’s recently passed Excelsior Scholarship, which provides free in-state tuition at public universities […]
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How Can We Make College Affordable? Some States Have It Down Better Than Others.
New College Cost Calculator Boosts Applications From Low-Income Students
By Kirk Carapezza It’s a dizzying time for high school seniors making their college decisions, but the next step — calculating how much it’s all going to cost — can be even more mind-boggling. Now, a handful of selective schools are trying to make the true price of college a little more transparent with […]
Only a Misunderstanding of What College Really Costs Could Have Produced New York’s Flawed Plan for Free Tuition
By Phillip B. Levine My father, a child of the Great Depression, used to say, “for free, take.” But sometimes free isn’t always a good deal. “Free college tuition” is an example of that. New York State’s recently passed Excelsior Scholarship, for instance, provides free tuition for all students whose family income is below $125,000. […]
College, Cheaper Than You Think
How much would you say it costs to attend a top private college like Dartmouth or Pomona for one year? I’m guessing that the first number that pops into your mind is quite large, like $60,000.For most Americans, that’s the wrong answer — and it’s wrong by a lot. The list-price tuition at these college does indeed run so high, but just a small slice of the population pays the list price. Typically, only families earning at least $200,000 a year fail to qualify for financial aid. For families with middle-class incomes, highly selective colleges are much, much less expensive.
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Professor hopes his quickie calculator will show low-income students they can afford a selective college
Make it easier to estimate real costs, and more students may take a chance on elite colleges by MIKHAIL ZINSHTEYN Yuna Ishikawa was in her senior year of high school in 2014 when she made the drive with her mother from Oberlin, Ohio, to visit Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She loved the place, but not […]
A Simpler Financial-Aid Calculator Spreads
By David Leonhardt A simplified financial-aid calculator — much easier to use than the federally mandated calculators that most colleges create — has begun spreading beyond Wellesley College, where it began two years ago. The spread, to the University of Virginia and Williams College, starting Monday, raises the possibility that more colleges will follow and […]
Financial Aid, Simplified: A Better College Calculator
By David Leonhardt The financial-aid calculators maintained by colleges are a case study in both flawed bureaucracy and flawed customer service. As part of a 2008 higher-education law, Congress required colleges to build the calculators — online tools to let families estimate how much they’d really have to pay to attend a specific college. The […]
Why students have no idea what college actually costs
Some of the best low-income students don’t even bother to apply to colleges with the most aid. Why? Blame misleading data. By Danielle Paquette ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The teenager stapled together his family’s pay stubs, tax returns and credit card statements. He slid them into his red North Face backpack, between the Advanced Placement calculus […]
An Economics Professor’s Guide to Figuring out How Much College Costs
Calculating college costs can be utterly baffling. Phillip B. Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College, argues that every school should offer a simplified financial aid calculator — or risk losing talented low-income prospects.
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College Costs and Affordability Essays
Find Out if Your Dream School is Actually Affordable
Education may be more affordable than you think. Let Wellesley’s MyinTuition tool help you anticipate college cost and assist you in your planning efforts. Elite private colleges charge $65,000 or more to attend their institutions, which is out of reach for most students looking to attend college. Their defense is that they offer generous financial […]
Why are college costs so hard to figure out?
By Phillip B. Levine Editor’s note: Phillip B. Levine is Katharine Coman and A. Barton Hepburn Professor in the Department of Economics at Wellesley College. He helped develop My inTuition, a simplified calculator for college costs. CNN Films presents “Ivory Tower,” which looks at the problem of college affordability. The opinions expressed in this commentary […]
Transparency in College Costs
Executive Summary This paper addresses the lack of transparency in the college pricing system, past attempts to address the problem, and proposals to do more in the future, with a particular focus on selective, private higher educational institutions. Despite recent federal legislation, students still have limited ability to anticipate the costs of college. Survey evidence […]
Simplifying Estimates of College Costs.
Information—or lack of it—was the single most frequently expressed problem. Almost without exception students felt that they were not aware of the possible financial aid programs available to them. Students had no means of planning because they had no information on eligibility rules (College Scholarship Service Advisory Committee 1976, 1). That statement was one of the conclusions of a report summarizing […]
A New Way to Calculate the Cost of College
By Kirk Carapezza and Mallory Noe-Payne It’s a stressful time of year for students who are preparing to send out their college applications. But the next step – figuring out how much it’s all going to cost – can be even more stressful. Now there’s a new effort to make that complicated process a little […]