Taking a Look at the States

For generations, states made college affordable for all of their citizens by keeping the price of their public higher education institutions low. But as more and more states have divested from their public university systems, those days are increasingly in the past.

Those in the higher education policy world have long debated about the effectiveness and efficiency of states’ historic low-tuition model.¹ Some student aid experts have advocated against this approach, saying that it doesn’t target subsidies effectively because it lowers the cost of higher education for the rich and the poor alike. They have argued that low-income students would benefit more from a high-tuition, high-aid model, in which states devote their subsidies exclusively to those who couldn’t afford to go to college without the help.²

The data in this report, however, don’t bear that out. In fact, they clearly show that the lowest-income students fare much better in states that have kept the cost of attending their public higher education institutions relatively low for in-state students.

Take, for example, the state of Indiana. In the Hoosier State, in-state public four-year college freshmen with family incomes of $30,000 or less paid an average net price of $6,325 in the 2015–16 academic year.

In contrast, the most financially needy in-state freshmen attending public four-year colleges in Pennsylvania paid an average net price that was almost double that amount: $14,281. And while none of Indiana’s 13 four-year public colleges charged the lowest-income freshmen an average net price over $10,000 (with Ball State University charging the most, at $8,697), 37 of Pennsylvania’s 41 public colleges did so, with 16 charging over $15,000. At the University of Pittsburgh, for example, the neediest in-state freshmen paid an average net price of nearly $22,000.

In addition to Indiana, other low-cost states that stand out in terms of keeping their public colleges accessible and affordable for the lowest-income, in-state students include: Washington ($7,444), California ($7,530), North Carolina ($7,846), and Wisconsin ($8,049).

Meanwhile, low-income, in-state freshmen who attend public four-year colleges face average net prices over $10,000 in 26 states, including high-tuition ones such as New Hampshire ($14,781), South Dakota ($14,219), Alabama ($13,952), and Delaware ($13,756).