From Washington Monthly: It’s increasingly apparent that public support for the nation’s colleges and universities has eroded over the past few years. While some of the disillusionment reflects the impact of conservative attacks on higher education, including Donald Trump’s campaign against prominent institutions, much of it stems from growing concerns about affordability, tuition sticker shock, student loan debt, and nagging doubts about whether a college degree is still a reliable ticket to a successful career. One recent survey found that the share of parents who said a postsecondary degree program was their top choice for their child’s post-high school plans fell from 74 percent in 2019 to 58 percent in 2025. That result is not an outlier. Survey after survey confirms that Americans have become increasingly skeptical about the value of a college degree. (“Skepticism” may even be an understatement; resentment, especially toward elite colleges, may be the more accurate characterization.)
But here’s the odd thing: despite overwhelming public anger at the perceived unaffordability of higher education, the average net cost of college has barely budged over at least the past decade. It’s actually fallen a bit. What might explain this disconnect? One theory is that the opaque and occasionally deceptive ways colleges advertise their prices leads to public misperception about college costs. A 2022 Government Accountability Office study found that 91 percent of colleges understate or don’t include the net price families pay in the offer letters sent to students. Such incomplete or misleading information often leads to “uninformed and costly decisions, such as enrolling in an unaffordable college,” according to the GAO. The confusion has been aggravated by a policy, common across the vast majority of four-year schools, of discounting high “sticker costs” by strategically offering generous institutional financial aid through “merit scholarships.”
This “high tuition-high aid” model results in a situation where published tuition prices bear little relation to what many students end up paying for college. Congress has recognized the problem, and, as this magazine has reported, several bills have been introduced in both the House and the Senate that would require greater clarity and simplicity in college offer letters...
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