A recent study took a look at each college in America and calculated the number of low-income graduates who wound up being top income earners. The study comes from the Equality of Opportunity Project and is paired with an interactive tool from the New York Times.
The Real Price Of College (Planet Money)
There's a huge gap between the sticker price and what the average student actually pays after figuring in grants and scholarships. That's true at private colleges around the country. Nationwide, the average sticker price is more than twice as high as the price students actually pay, and the gap is getting wider.
The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined (NY Times)
“Millions of students will arrive on college campuses soon, and they will share a similar burden: college debt. The typical student borrower will take out $6,600 in a single year, averaging $22,000 in debt by graduation, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. There are two ways to measure whether borrowers can repay those loans: There’s what the federal government looks at to judge colleges, and then there’s the real story. The latter is coming to light, and it’s not pretty.”
Hey Students, Applying For College Aid Is Easier! (But Still Hard) - NPR
When the Obama administration announced "an easier, earlier FAFSA" last year, prospective college students (and their parents) cheered. And it is both. So why do many students still have trouble finishing the FAFSA?
Those Hidden College Fees (NY Times)
The parade of fees on college campuses never seems to end. There are extra charges to start college, such as orientation fees and freshman fees, and extra charges to finish, such as senior fees and commencement fees. Since 1999, mandatory fees have risen 30 percent more than tuition has, said Robert Kelchen, an assistant professor at Seton Hall University who has studied the issue. The average fee at four-year public colleges was almost $1,700 in 2015-16. That’s nearly 20 percent of the tuition and fee average.
Getting a Student Loan With Collateral From a Future Job (NY Times)
At Purdue University, some undergraduates will have a new option to help finance their degrees: pledging to pay a percentage of their future incomes in return for funds today. Such programs are not loans. Instead, students get funds to cover current education expenses, and, in return, they agree to pay a percentage of their future income over an agreed-upon period of time.
Though an emerging corner of the educational finance industry, such programs help ease the often crushing debt many American college students face after graduation, proponents say. A small number of lenders have tested the model in recent years, but Purdue is the first American university to officially embrace the concept.
$20 Billion in Tax Credits Fails to Increase College Attendance
Taxpayers will file for $20 billion in tax credits for college expenses they paid in 2015, but while those who get them will no doubt be happy, new evidence shows they have no effect on encouraging people to attend college.
Why Upperclassmen Lose Financial Aid (NY Times)
The predicament is all too familiar to students hunting for college bargains. Focused on cost, they attend the institution that showers them with the most money. But many learn a bitter economic lesson once they enroll: The debt can mount during the course of an undergraduate career, thanks to fine print, tough academic requirements on grants, and unanticipated tuition and fee increases. Few tools or resources forecast anything about the costs of sophomore, junior or senior year, and there’s little information available about how financial aid changes for upperclassmen.
College for the Masses (NY Times)
How much money should taxpayers spend subsidizing higher education? How willing should students be to take on college debt? How hard should Washington and state governments push colleges to lift their graduation rates? All of these questions depend on whether a large number of at-risk students are really capable of completing a four-year degree.
As it happens, two separate — and ambitious — recent academic studies have looked at precisely this issue.
Learn more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/upshot/college-for-the-masses.html
The In-State Tuition Break, Slowly Disappearing (NY Times)
Over the last decade, state governments and universities have been chipping away at a pillar of American opportunity: in-state tuition.