Families reported spending $28,409 on the 2023-24 academic year, and they paid nearly half with income and savings, according to Sallie Mae. There was also clear evidence of the impacts of FAFSA troubles.
The suit called 17 elite schools a "cartel" and "gatekeepers of the American dream" for defrauding students of hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid.
Many institutions continue to rely on outdated financial planning tools. Nearly 50% still use spreadsheets for forecasting and tuition projections, and nearly a third use spreadsheets for budgeting, according to a Syntellis survey.
International student enrollment has largely recouped to pre-pandemic numbers, including at the graduate level, with students from India, China, Sub-Saharan Africa and Iran helping drive the way.
Purdue, for example, has agreed to its twelfth consecutive year of freezing tuition, set below $10,000. The university estimates that this decision has saved students more than $1 billion on educational and living expenses since 2013. However, most public institutions cannot afford to set a tuition freeze without state funding.
Since fall 2017, enrollment at the state's four-year public institutions has declined by 12.4%, a dramatically worse dip than the nation's overall 3% decrease in that sector, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Despite the net price for private colleges falling by 11% in the past five years, nearly one-third of parents and students believe that a college education is overpriced. This one simple tactic can be to blame.