Dr. Robin H. Holmes-Sullivan
I usually start my answer with a statistic some find surprising: despite the headlines, post-high school educational attainment in the U.S. is at an all-time high. Just last month, the Lumina Foundation released a report demonstrating that 54.9% of working-age adults in the U.S. hold a degree or credential―a 17% increase since 2008.
Still, we are not where we likely need to be as a nation given that many other countries, including China, Canada and Japan have considerably higher concentrations of degree-holders. Educational accessibility is largely a policy choice and all of us must continue to advocate for greater accessibility of postsecondary education for all.
Education―like agriculture, transportation, energy, manufacturing and other sectors important to the security and prosperity of our country―is, in part, subsidized by the federal government. That said, most colleges and universities are subject to the market principle of supply and demand. Fees for tuition and room-and-board are set according to what the market will bear.
But, the sticker price published on college and university websites is not what many, or even most, students pay. You might understandably wonder why, then, don’t colleges just publish what students actually end up paying? The answer is because the actual out-of-pocket costs vary.
