Public University Results

This report examined 584 public four-year colleges and found the following:

• 305 public colleges, or 52 percent of those examined, charged the lowest-income, in-state freshmen an average net price over $10,000 in the 2015–16 academic year; and 49 of those institutions, or 8 percent of the schools, required these students to come up with $15,000 or more.
• Many of these high-net-price public universities are in states that have adopted a high-tuition model. For example, 54 of these colleges, or 17 percent of the institutions that charged low-income freshmen a higher average net price, are located in just two states—Ohio and Pennsylvania—that have long followed such a model.
• Low-income freshmen attending public universities in their home states paid an average net price above $10,000 in more than half of the states.
• Many public universities that have the means to enroll a significant share of Pell Grant recipients and charge them a low net price choose not to do so. These include some of the country’s most exclusive public universities, which enroll only a small proportion of low-income students. They also include a substantial number of colleges that use their institutional aid as a competitive weapon to attract the students they desire, rather than to meet the financial need of their in-state students.