Limited Means, Limited Options College Remains Unaffordable for Many Americans

Higher education offers people from all walks of life the opportunity to achieve a more secure future for themselves and their families. The US was built in part on the idea that, with hard work and a good education, any American should be able to climb the ladder of social and economic mobility. The very notion of the American Dream is based on that concept of freedom— that we are not condemned to a particular social or economic class. Unfortunately, high college costs are stymieing progress for Americans of limited financial means, undermining the ideals of opportunity and fairness. To better understand the nature and scope of inequities in college affordability, IHEP’s research—comparing the Benchmark’s affordability thresholds for ten theoretical 21st-century students with over 2,000 colleges’ net prices—confirms how unaffordable college has become for many Americans. The data show wide variation in affordability between students with different income backgrounds. In fact, although the student from the highest income quintile in these analyses could afford to attend ninety percent of colleges in the sample, the low- and moderate-income students with fewer financial resources could only afford one-to-five percent of colleges. While it is clear that very few colleges meet a reasonable threshold of affordability for students of modest means, federal, state, and institutional policymakers can help level the playing field. This paper offers five recommendations to address issues of affordability that negatively affect college access and completion.