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Presidential candidates have
been pumping the ether full of talk about college inaccessibility and plans to
ameliorate those circumstances. And, as most high school seniors
with college aspirations would tell you, such talk has basis.
The College Board reports
that, between 2004 and 2014, annual costs at public and private four-year
colleges increased by 32.3 and 22.7 percent, respectively. The average cost of
a college education is now around $70,000 or $170,000, depending on which path
one takes at the public-private road fork.
The result? Students have
amassed $1.2 trillion in outstanding debt. 17 percent of student loan holders
are behind on their payments, and another 14 percent are in default.
Yet, Hillary Clinton and Dr.
Ben Carson alike continue to neglect a critical, tractable factor impeding
young people from receiving a bachelor’s degree: elusive, faulty college cost
information.
Research
from Stanford has shown that high-achieving, low-income students shy away from
top-tier, aid-heavy colleges because they simply do not know what attendance would
actually cost them.
Responding to similar
studies, the federal government has required
colleges to develop and publish “net price calculators” enabling prospective
students to illuminate the costs entailed in attendance. Policy advocates,
however, have criticized that these calculators are too unwieldy to be useful.
To compound matters, a
recent study
from Trulia found that even when colleges do disclose costs, this information
can be highly inaccurate.
Trulia’s study examined
differences between the reported off-campus housing costs of 20 colleges and
the median prices of Trulia rental listings in those colleges’ communities. UC
Berkeley, for instance, was found to have underestimated off-campus housing
costs by 42 percent—over $5,000. The University of Texas, Austin was found to overestimate costs by 59 percent. (Of
course, there are a few caveats about this study, which were well-reviewed by
Anna Marie Erwert at SFGate.)
Inaccuracy in any reported
college expenses harms in several ways. Overestimation deters some prospective
students with ostensibly prohibitive costs. Underestimation is equally
problematic, lulling students into a false sense of security and leading them
to drop out or be smothered by debt.
Misreports of housing
expenses, however, are particularly dangerous considering such costs
potentially aggregate tens of thousands of dollars a year.
But just how widespread is
inaccuracy in reported off-campus housing costs? Data from the
Department of Education and Rent
Jungle offer an idea.
Figure 1 of the visualization juxtaposes each college’s reported off-campus housing costs with rent averages of one- and two-bedroom apartments within a ten-mile radius. Columns are split by the apartments’ number of bedrooms and inhabitants. Red text marks colleges that did not report off-campus housing costs between 2011 and 2014.
Figure 2 visualizes
differences between reported off-campus housing costs and calculated costs. Negative values suggest that off-campus housing costs were overestimated.
Finally, Figure 3 charts the
average inaccuracy of each college’s reported off-campus housing costs, which
is simply the average of absolute values of the differences in Figure 2. Bars
are shaded according to college communities’ monthly rent prices.
The sample of colleges used is based on The New York Times' College Access Index. All data are from 2013–14,
with the exception of Occidental (2011–12) and Vanderbilt (2012–13). Rent
averages were calculated by finding the average monthly rent from the time
period and multiplying the result by nine. (Note: The academic year for
trimester schools is typically eight months long. Thus, total rent expenses for
students of such schools might be slightly smaller.)
