Publications

NEW: Do Price Controls Help Students?

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Car Sales and College Graduation

In “Car Sales and College Graduation” Nate Johnson, principal of higher education research and consulting firm Postsecondary Analytics LLC, argues that reporting more current college completion data is possible. NCES collects data on degrees awarded once a year. By early February, preliminary numbers are available for institutional researchers’ use, but the final numbers are released in the summer, a full year after the prior year’s students have actually graduated. The preliminary numbers available in February have proven to be a reliable estimate. In Nate’s experience, usually there has been very little difference between the totals that can be calculated with the preliminary data and what eventually comes out several months later…

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What Does a College Degree Cost? Comparing Approaches to Measuring Cost per Degree

With or without a detailed expenditure analysis, the question of degree costs is reasonable and should be taken seriously. It is also one that can be answered, though the answer will vary depending on the policy motivation and context for the question. Depending on how the question is framed, the direct and indirect cost of providing instruction for the average bachelor’s degree at a public college or university is between $25,000 and $40,000, from a mix of public subsidies and student tuition. Where it falls in the range depends on how the question is framed. No matter how the question is addressed, however, there will be wide variations around the average depending on the student’s major and the institution attended. For a student, by contrast, the average cost of obtaining a degree from a public institution will fall between $35,000 and $70,000, depending again on which costs are included…

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