Tuition Tracker
Overview
Don’t let the sticker price fool you
Don’t let the sticker price fool you.
The updated 2018 version of the web tool shows what students really pay for college, based on their family income.
Search for the cost trends and real prices of more than 3,800 colleges and universities in the United States. And check out quality indicators like graduation rates and diversity.
Visit TuitionTracker.org and start searching.
Click Key Coverage, Latest News, and Announcements in the tabs below to view stories from around the country drawn from the Tuition Tracker database and learn about how you can use the tool.
How Much Does College Really Cost? New ‘Tuition Tracker’ Tool Offers Answers.
Interactive Database Shows Sticker Price and ‘Net’ Price for Campuses, Plus Other Key Information
This webinar provides a demonstration of the updated “Tuition Tracker,” a collaborative data project of The Hechinger Report, EWA and The Dallas Morning News. Journalists can get embargoed access to a new tool documenting how prices at individual colleges have changed for different income groups over the last seven years. The embargo will lift on Thursday, Oct. 18, at 12:01 a.m. EDT.
The new Tuition Tracker provides:
New data show some colleges are definitively unaffordable for many
Even as net prices begin to fall at some schools, many families are priced out
By most measures, Aboubacar Konate was an outstanding candidate for college.
Konate graduated second in his class from The English High School in Boston with a 4.5 grade-point average. He was on the student council and debate team, took Advanced Placement classes in history and chemistry, speaks four languages, worked a corporate internship and played three sports: soccer, basketball and track.
New Tuition Tracker Documents Rising College Prices
Updated interactive tool shows how low-income students are being priced out of four-year colleges.
In an effort to provide clearer college affordability information to the public and media, a consortium of journalism organizations released an updated and improved “Tuition Tracker” web tool on Oct. 18, 2018.
Texas Public Universities Are More Affordable Compared with Most States
Texas public universities remain more affordable compared with most states, though out-of-pocket costs for many families continue to rise.That’s based on a Dallas Morning News analysis of cost data that colleges report to the federal government.
The published cost to attend a Texas public university averages more than $20,000 a year for in-state students. Thanks to financial aid, most students pay less than that.
About Tuition Tracker
The 2018 Tuition Tracker online tool, which was updated and relaunched on Oct. 18, 2018, makes it easy to look up and compare the annual prices charged by more than 3,800 public, private and for-profit colleges and universities.
Data Show Poorer Families Are Bearing the Brunt of College Price Hikes
America’s colleges and universities are quietly shifting the burden of their big tuition increases onto low-income students, while many higher-income families are seeing their college costs rise more slowly, or even fall, an analysis of federal data shows.
It’s a trend financial-aid experts and some university administrators worry will further widen the gap between the nation’s rich and poor as college degrees—especially four-year ones—drift beyond the economic reach of growing numbers of students.
Wealthier Families Increasingly Benefit from Federal, College Financial Aid
It’s not just colleges and universities that are shifting their financial aid from lower-income to higher-income students.
Tuition tax credits and other tax breaks to offset the cost of higher education — nearly invisible federal government subsidies for families that send their kids to college — also disproportionately benefit more affluent Americans. So do tax-deductible savings plans and the federal work-study program, which gives taxpayer dollars to students who take campus jobs to help pay for their expenses.
How Some Families Pay Less for College Than Others
The sticker price at Pennsylvania State University runs about $30,000 a year for in-state students. At Swarthmore College, it’s nearly twice that.
Yet Swarthmore ends up being cheaper for most students. That’s because this private liberal-arts college near Philadelphia offers many families a hefty discount, bringing down the average cost to even less than taxpayer-subsidized Penn State’s.