How Colleges Mislead Families about the True Cost of Higher Education

Concealing the true costs of your services is no way to conduct an honest business. Imagine a bank, for example, that includes only a fraction of a mortgage’s costs on a homebuyer’s closing documents. Buyers would not tolerate such a lack of transparency.

And yet U.S. colleges routinely give families misleading and even deceptive information in the financial-aid letters they send to potential students. This lack of transparency makes it nearly impossible for families to find out the true amount they will pay for college (the figure known as a college’s net price).