Beyond College Tuition: Urban Institute Looks at Other Factors Impacting College Affordability

Title: Understanding College Affordability

Source: The Urban Institute

The Urban Institute recently updated its Understanding College Affordability website with new data. The website allows scholars to explore how affordability fluctuates based on a variety of factors including tuition, student characteristics, institutional type, financial aid, employment during and after college, and loan repayment. The new data reveal that affordability varies greatly by student demographics and the schools they choose to attend.

On the Student Profiles webpage, students are categorized into the following groups: independent, low-income dependent, lower-middle-income dependent, upper-middle-income dependent, or upper-income dependent. Scholars can download data by student characteristics to better understand how students pay for college and how time to degree completion impacts cost. Given recent national rhetoric around college becoming increasingly inaccessible due to the rising cost of tuition, this tool provides timely and crucial data on the affordability of postsecondary education.

To learn more, please visit the Understanding College Affordability website.

—Darsella Vigil