Rising tuition costs in the US aren’t the only obstacle to attending college these days. Many Americans are struggling with a more fundamental task: simply figuring out how much a bachelor’s degree would cost them,
A new survey from Gallup and the higher education foundation Lumina shows that a large majority of people remain convinced of the benefits of going to college. But the cost deters many from enrolling, with less than a quarter of respondents estimating the cost of earning a bachelor’s degree within $5,000 of the actual price, the analysis found.
Missing tuition fees
Such confusion is especially problematic because colleges inflate the sticker price for attendance to nearly six figures, often as a marketing ploy to signal their exclusivity. Because few students and their families actually pay that price, thanks to financial aid and other forms of support, focusing on that number can be misleading, experts note.
“People hear the $100,000 and they assume that’s what college costs,” Courtney Brown, Lumina’s vice president of impact and planning, told CBS MoneyWatch. “That one story becomes the myth of what it costs.”
Yet it’s also difficult for people to predict what college will cost from year to year, since students must reapply for financial aid every year, while colleges often change their tuition and fees, she noted. That can confuse students, especially if they don’t have much wiggle room in their budgets.
“Colleges are doing their students a disservice by not fully knowing how much it costs,” Brown says. “Recommendation No. 1 is that institutions should be more transparent about exactly what it will cost” to earn a degree.
That could partly explain why a majority of respondents couldn’t accurately estimate the cost of a study. The actual cost of attending a public university in the state is about $15,000 annually, according to Gallup and Lumina. But about half of those surveyed said they believed the price was less than $10,000 per year, while a third estimated the price to be more than $20,000 per year.
Both misconceptions can lead to bad results. For example, people who think college is more expensive than it actually is may be less likely to enroll and miss out on crucial educational opportunities.
Meanwhile, “Those who underestimate the costs may be more concerning because those are the people who will then have to take out more loans,” Brown noted. “They think it’s not going to cost that much, and then they realize, ‘Oh, wait, I have to pay for room and board and food and all this other stuff,’ and they’re the ones who have to pay to make more loans.”
‘It affects everything’
The survey, which surveyed nearly 14,000 people ranging from enrolled students to Americans who never went to college, also highlights the negative impact student debt can have on people’s lives.
About seven in 10 people with student loans said they had postponed at least one major milestone because of debt, ranging from buying a house to getting married. About 1 in 7 said they had postponed getting married or having children because of their student loans, the survey found.
“This is really important to pay attention to because if we want to have thriving communities, we can’t have people crippled by student loan debt,” Brown said. “If this prevents you from carrying out normal life activities, then that is a problem for our communities, and it affects everything – it affects our health, it affects our democracy, it affects our community life.”
Brown noted that addressing student debt through new repayment plans or forgiveness, as the Biden administration is doing, is important, but she added that there should also be a focus on curbing college costs and providing more transparency to students.
“College degrees are important to our current workforce and our future workforce – we know that people with higher education are healthier, contribute more to our communities and are more satisfied in their jobs,” Brown said.
She added: “But it is not accessible, and we need to get to the root of this and try to find ways to make it affordable and end the massive pile-up of student debt that is crippling so many people.”
