Tag: Cost

  • Cost Is Graduate Enrollment “Gatekeeper”

    Cost Is Graduate Enrollment “Gatekeeper”

    Many graduate programs face funding cuts, enrollment declines and uncertain futures, but a new report describes cost of attendance as the “ultimate gatekeeper” to enrollment.

    Between Aug. 20 and Sept. 8, 2025, the enrollment management consulting firm EAB surveyed 8,106 current and prospective graduate and adult learners about their motivations, financial concerns, program search methods and program preferences.

    The findings, published Thursday in EAB’s 2025 Adult Learner Survey, show that cost ranked as the most important factor in enrollment decisions, surpassing program accreditation, which was last year’s top factor.

    The majority of prospective students (60 percent) said they would eliminate a program from consideration if they perceived it to be “too expensive.” Although data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that the average annual cost of graduate school is more than $20,000, EAB’s survey found that 39 percent of learners believe anything more than $10,000 is too expensive; 62 percent said they wouldn’t be willing to pay more than $20,000 a year for graduate school.

    “The hopes and expectations of today’s adult learners are colliding with a financial aid system in a period of significant transition,” Val Fox, a senior director and principal in EAB’s adult learner recruitment division, said in a news release. “Federal aid sources are shrinking, and students with low credit scores may not qualify for private loans. This mismatch will make it even harder to sustain enrollment at a time when institutions need domestic adult learners more than ever.”

    Learners’ heightened concerns about cost come as graduate programs also grapple with new federal policies—including caps on graduate student loans, cuts to research funding and visa restrictions for international students—that are making it even harder for institutions to balance their budgets and attract new students.

    At the same time, however, graduate students and adult learners increasingly rely on outside funding. Scholarships were the most commonly cited funding source (52 percent), followed by financial aid, loans or grants, though both categories fell several percentage points compared to last year. Meanwhile, the report found that 25 percent of respondents cited personal or household income as one of their top five funding sources this year, compared to more than 40 percent last year.

    “Success for U.S. graduate schools in 2026 will depend heavily on their ability to adapt recruiting strategies to accommodate policy shifts and evolving student priorities,” Fox said. “Schools need to communicate costs clearly, especially on digital channels, and align their value propositions to individual student interests through hyperpersonalized marketing.”

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  • Counting the cost of financial challenges in English higher education

    Counting the cost of financial challenges in English higher education

    The financial health of UK universities has become a pressing concern, with widespread reports of deficits and shrinking operating surpluses. Yet until now, robust evidence on how these pressures shape institutional decisions – on investment, staffing, research, and student services – has been limited.

    To address this evidence gap, interviews were conducted with chief financial officers and directors of finance in 74 of the 133 higher education institutions in England between March and May 2025, covering 56 per cent of institutions.

    The study covered all TRAC peer groups, from research-intensive universities to specialist arts and music colleges. The findings reveal stark differences in financial resilience across the sector, but also common themes that underscore systemic vulnerabilities.

    A striking 85 per cent of institutions reported either an operating deficit, break-even position, or reduced surplus in the current year. Only 11 institutions – just under 15 per cent – maintained or improved their operating surplus. Even among these, financial pressures were evident, with cost-cutting and efficiency drives mirroring those in deficit institutions.

    Low research intensity institutions are most exposed, with 95 per cent in deficit or reduced surplus, while high research intensity universities fare slightly better at 79 per cent. Arts and music colleges also show significant vulnerability, with nearly nine in ten reporting financial strain.

    Strategies and trade-offs

    The origins of financial weakness vary by institutional type. For research intensive universities, the decline in international tuition fee income is the dominant concern, compounded by visa restrictions and heightened global competition. Medium and low research intensity institutions cite rising staff and estate costs, alongside pension liabilities. For arts and music colleges, the freeze on UK tuition fees was a critical issue, although face additional challenges given the liability of smallness.

    These challenges are not short-term blips. An overwhelming 97 per cent of respondents view the current situation as a structural, long-term problem. Many argue that the sector’s business model – heavily reliant on international student income and constrained by capped domestic fees – is fundamentally unsustainable. And more worryingly difficult to change in the short to medium term.

    Faced with financial stringency, universities are deploying a mix of defensive and adaptive strategies. Borrowing has been rare – only five per cent of deficit institutions increased debt – but asset sales and diversification of income streams are common. Over three-quarters of institutions are actively seeking new revenue sources, from commercialisation and estate rental to online learning and transnational education partnerships.

    Interestingly, financial pressure is not uniformly leading to retrenchment. While some institutions have closed departments or dropped programmes – particularly among medium and less research-intensive universities – many are introducing new courses, both undergraduate and postgraduate, to attract students and generate income.

    Staffing, however, tells a more sobering story. Nearly half of deficit institutions have implemented voluntary redundancy schemes, and around one-fifth have resorted to compulsory redundancies. Recruitment freezes are widespread, affecting academic and professional staff alike. These measures, while necessary for financial stability, risk eroding institutional capacity and morale.

    Counting the cost

    The ripple effects of financial constraint extend beyond staffing. Research support is under significant strain: over a third of institutions report cuts to research facilities and internal consortia. Yet there are pockets of investment – 18 per cent of institutions have increased funding for libraries and data services, and nearly one-fifth have boosted support for industrial collaborations, reflecting a strategic pivot toward partnerships and innovation.

    Student experience has, so far, been relatively protected. Most institutions have maintained spending on mental health, wellbeing, and inclusion initiatives, though career development and academic support have seen reductions in about a quarter of cases. Investment in estates is more uneven: while many institutions are deferring maintenance and new builds, over half are increasing spending on digital transformation – a clear signal of shifting priorities.

    Financial turbulence is also reshaping leadership dynamics. Nearly 90 per cent of respondents agree that leadership teams are under heightened pressure and scrutiny, with a growing emphasis on short-term decision-making. This environment is taking a toll on staff wellbeing: two-thirds of respondents report negative impacts on mental health, alongside rising workloads and job insecurity. Trust in leadership has declined in almost half of institutions, underscoring the human dimension of the financial crisis.

    Perhaps the most sobering finding is the sector’s view of external support. Over 60 per cent of respondents rated government and regional assistance as ineffective. The message is clear: incremental adjustments will not suffice. Respondents called for a fundamental review of the funding model in higher education. Without decisive intervention, the risk is not just institutional hardship but systemic decline – jeopardising the UK’s global standing in higher education and research.

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  • Universities now need to be much clearer about the total cost of a course

    Universities now need to be much clearer about the total cost of a course

    Now that we know the undergraduate fee caps that will apply in England in 2026-27 and 2027-28, now seems like a good time to get something off my to-do list.

    For the sector, the headline is financial stability – after years of the fee cap being frozen while costs rose, two years of confirmed inflationary increases provide some relief.

    But the announcement also crystallises a compliance problem that has been building since April, when new price transparency provisions came into force under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.

    Last week the Competition and Markets Authority published finalised guidance on Complying with the law on unfair commercial practices relating to price transparency.

    For a student starting a three-year degree next September, the total tuition cost is now entirely calculable. Year 1: £9,535. Year 2: £9,790. Year 3: £10,050. Total: £29,375.

    And yet university prospectuses and websites overwhelmingly advertise just the Year 1 figure – understating the actual three-year cost by nearly £2,000.

    Under the new CMA guidance that practice looks legally vulnerable. And, at least for England, OfS about to consult on applying a new “treating students fairly” condition to all registered providers, the regulatory architecture to enforce compliance is assembling itself.

    A note before I get going – the DMCC Act is UK-wide legislation, and the CMA’s price transparency requirements apply to universities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland just as they do in England.

    The OfS regulatory overlay – particularly Condition C5, whatever version of it gets applied to existing providers, and a presumption of non-compliance where consumer law has been breached – is England-specific.

    Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish universities don’t face the same automatic read-across from CMA findings to registration consequences. But they remain fully exposed to CMA enforcement, including direct fines and redress orders. It just means the enforcement route is different.

    £29,375. And the rest

    CMA209 is formal CMA guidance issued under the DMCC Act on the price transparency provisions – not HE-specific, but nothing in it carves higher education out.

    At its heart, it says that whenever a trader gives information about a product and its price, that is usually an “invitation to purchase” – and at that point the consumer must be given a realistic, meaningful and attainable total price, including any fees, taxes or other payments they will necessarily incur if they go ahead.

    The guidance defines “invitations to purchase” broadly – a website listing, an advert, a prospectus entry, an email, an instant message from an ambassador, so long as it indicates the characteristics of a product and its price and enables the consumer to decide whether to purchase or take some other “transactional decision.”

    Universities can’t rely on the detailed fee terms being buried on a separate page, or in the conditions of offer, to cure a misleading headline later in the journey.

    Three specific practices are now explicitly prohibited or heavily restricted:

    Drip pricing – showing one price up front and then introducing mandatory charges only later in the process – is now a prohibited practice under section 230 of the DMCC Act. The guidance is unambiguous:

    The practice of showing consumers an initial headline price for a product and subsequently introducing additional mandatory charges as consumers proceed with a purchase or transaction – sometimes called ‘drip pricing’ – is prohibited under the UCP provisions.

    Partitioned pricing – giving a list of components without also giving the overall total – is:

    …generally prohibited since it is not consistent with providing the ‘total price’ of the product.

    You can’t say “Tuition fee £X, additional compulsory course costs apply, see small print” without also giving either a single total price or, where that total genuinely cannot be calculated, a clear and prominent explanation of how it will be calculated.

    Non-prominent variable pricing information – where some part of the total price cannot reasonably be calculated in advance, traders must tell consumers how that part will be calculated, “with as much prominence as” any calculable components. A footnote in the terms and conditions will not do.

    Mandatory charges and hidden course costs

    The guidance is explicit that the “total price” must include any fees, taxes, charges or other payments that the consumer will necessarily incur. Mandatory charges include – per the guidance –

    administration fees, however described, such as booking or processing fees, quality assurance charges, platform charges… [and]… fees relating to additional services that cannot be avoided.

    Crucially, the guidance also says that charges arising from the trader’s own input costs – including the costs of third parties they choose to contract with – are mandatory and must be baked into the advertised price, not bolted on separately.

    Consumers have no control over such expenses. They cannot compare and select the third-party provider or products they use and have no way of opting out of them.

    I’m thinking maybe mandatory DBS and occupational health checks for health courses where the university organises the process, or compulsory field trip costs where the programme design offers no realistic non-paying route. Under CMA209, those all look like mandatory charges that should be rolled into the total price shown wherever the course and its fee are advertised – not left for discovery on a faculty web page in week three of term.

    The guidance is also explicit that merely calling something an “extra” or listing it separately does not make it optional:

    A charge is mandatory if the consumer will have to pay the additional charge in order to purchase or receive the advertised product. It is still a mandatory charge even if the consumer could theoretically avoid it by purchasing or signing up for an additional product.

    The guidance notes that refundable security deposits – money held against potential damage that’s “automatically refunded if not called upon” – don’t need to be included in the total price.

    But non-refundable deposits that form part of the purchase price are different. International students routinely pay substantial non-refundable deposits to secure places – often £1,000–3,000 or more, and sometimes 50 per cent of the first year’s fees.

    These are mandatory charges, payable before the student can even accept an offer. Under CMA209’s logic, the existence of the deposit, its amount, and the circumstances in which it might be forfeited are all material information that should be disclosed upfront – not discovered partway through the application process.

    The guidance’s emphasis on not introducing charges “later in the process” is directly relevant – if a student applies based on a headline fee figure and only later discovers they need to pay a substantial non-refundable deposit before they can confirm their place, that looks a lot like drip pricing.

    The “additional course costs” problem

    Plenty of universities maintain a separate page – often linked from the main fees section – listing “additional course costs” that students should “budget for.” Under CMA209, this structure is problematic on multiple fronts.

    First, where those costs are genuinely mandatory – DBS checks, professional registrations, required equipment – listing them separately is textbook partitioned pricing. The guidance is explicit:

    It is not enough to present the individual price components and expect the consumer to calculate the total price.

    A course page that shows tuition at £9,535 and then separately lists a £50 DBS check, £150 uniform and £120 professional body registration is doing exactly what CMA209 prohibits – presenting components without the total.

    Even where costs relate to optional modules, the guidance requires that variable pricing information be given “with as much prominence as” the calculable headline price. A link to a separate page does not constitute equal prominence.

    The “optional” categorisation itself deserves scrutiny. The guidance notes that a charge remains mandatory “even if the consumer could theoretically avoid it” through alternative choices.

    If a geology degree features fieldwork in its marketing, and the fieldwork module has a £500 field trip cost, the theoretical existence of non-fieldwork routes doesn’t make that cost optional for students buying the product as advertised.

    The test is whether the base price is “realistic, meaningful and attainable” for the degree as typically experienced – not whether a determined student could engineer a cheaper path through.

    Universities may need to audit every course’s additional costs and ask hard questions about what’s genuinely optional versus what’s mandatory in practice. The answer will often be uncomfortable. Oh, and the cost of resitting something also clearly needs more… clarity.

    Multi-year degrees and in-contract price increases

    The guidance has a specific section on “periodic pricing” – contracts where the consumer makes regular payments in return for ongoing services, such as subscriptions, gym memberships or broadband. It distinguishes between “rolling contracts” (can be cancelled any time, so the total price is just the price per period) and “minimum term contracts” (consumer commits for a defined period).

    For minimum term contracts, traders can either provide:

    ….the cumulative price that the consumer will have to pay over the entire minimum length of the contract, inclusive of all mandatory charges in that period

    …or provide:

    the total price that the consumer pays for each period of the contract… alongside a prominent statement of the number of months the consumer is committed to pay that price for.

    Most undergraduate degrees look very like a minimum-term periodic arrangement in substance. The student expects to be there for three or four years, paying annual tuition fees for ongoing access to teaching and services, and will normally make their transactional decision on the basis of the whole degree rather than a single year.

    The CMA’s own 2023 HE guidance reinforces this as follows:

    …the contract for educational services is for the full duration of the course, with milestones to be achieved in order to progress to the next year or other period of study.

    Applied to tuition fees, that raises some uncomfortable questions. If a university advertises fees at £9,535 for a three-year degree, is it in effect inviting the student into a three-year minimum term contract for services, with periodic payments due each year?

    If so, under CMA209 it should either present the total cumulative cost for the minimum term – or present a per-year total price plus a prominent statement of the minimum term, with any one-off fees (or, by analogy, any known annual increases) properly disclosed.

    Guidance was already clear that fee variation clauses are more likely to be fair if they include a “worked example” of how the clause might operate. Abstract percentages – “fees may increase by up to 5% annually” – don’t give consumers equivalent information to concrete pound figures.

    An international applicant who sees “£28,000” as the headline may not instinctively calculate that (“up to”) 5 per cent annual increases would mean approximately £88,200 over three years rather than £84,000 – a difference of over £4,000.

    For that percentage to have “as much prominence as” the headline price, it would need to be translated into the actual cost impact. This is particularly important for vulnerable consumers who may not run compound calculations when making application decisions.

    Universities might have argued that the total cost of a degree “cannot reasonably be calculated in advance” because future fee caps depend on inflation forecasts not yet made. For home UGs in England, that defence has now evaporated.

    Continuing to advertise “£9,535” when £29,375 is knowable would, under CMA209’s logic, be hard to reconcile with the requirement to provide the total price in an invitation to purchase.

    The guidance is explicit that traders should use any information already available to calculate the total price. The worked example for hotel bookings states that:

    …if a consumer searches for a ‘three-night stay for two people’ on a hotel booking website, the trader should use this information to calculate the total price based on those requirements including any per-transaction charges (and any other mandatory charges).

    By analogy – if a student is applying for a three-year degree starting in 2025, the university has all the information it needs to calculate and display the total cost.

    As we noted when the DMCC provisions came into force in April, vague claims that fees “may rise with inflation” may breach the rules if they fail to explain how, when, or by how much – or if that information isn’t given equal weight to the headline figure.

    Universities might argue that the “product” is access to one year of teaching and assessment, with progression to subsequent years being a separate (conditional) transaction. Under that framing, each year would be a genuinely rolling contract and the periodic pricing provisions wouldn’t require cumulative totals.

    The problem with that defence is threefold – it contradicts how universities market degrees (as three or four-year qualifications leading to awards), it contradicts the CMA’s own 2023 HE guidance on the duration of the educational services contract, and it would require universities to fundamentally redesign their offer letters, student contracts, and progression frameworks. It is not, I tentatively suggest, an easy pivot.

    The deferral problem

    The interaction between in-contract price increases and deferrals creates another drip pricing risk that universities may need to address.

    A student who applied for 2025 entry and accepts an offer does so on the basis of £9,535 fees. If they then defer to 2026, they face £9,790 – a £255 increase. The CMA’s 2023 HE guidance already flagged that deferrals require:

    …transparent information on the level of fees for that year if they could increase, and any other significant potential aspects of the course that you know will or may be different.

    Under CMA209, this looks like exactly the kind of later-revealed mandatory charge that the drip pricing prohibition targets. The student was shown one price when they made their transactional decision (accepting the offer), then charged a different, higher price when they actually enrol. Universities offering deferrals with “fees will be the rate applicable in your year of entry” are building this mechanism into their standard practice.

    The compliant approach would be to disclose at the point of offer – or certainly at the point of accepting a deferral – what the Year 1 fee for 2026 entry will be, what the total degree cost will be (using the now-known 2026-27, 2027-28, and projected 2028-29 figures), and how this differs from the cost had the student started in 2025. Anything less risks a student committing to defer without understanding the price implications.

    Non-standard degree structures

    The DfE announcement also creates specific presentation challenges for degrees that don’t follow the standard three-year full-time model.

    Foundation years: The announcement confirms that classroom-based foundation years remain frozen at 2025-26 levels while subsequent years increase. A four-year programme with a foundation year therefore has a complex cost profile: Year 0 at one price, Years 1–3 escalating. You cannot simply multiply the Year 1 fee by four – and the total will be different from a standard three-year degree starting in the same year. How should universities present this? The CMA209 logic suggests they need to show the actual cumulative total for the specific programme structure, not an indicative per-year figure that doesn’t reflect reality.

    Placement years and years abroad: Different percentage caps apply – 20 per cent of the full fee for sandwich placements, 15 per cent for years abroad and Turing years. A four-year degree with a placement year has three years at full fee and one at 20 per cent, while a degree with a year abroad has three at full fee and one at 15 per cent. For a 2025 entrant on a four-year sandwich course, the calculation would be £9,535 (Year 1) + £9,790 (Year 2, placement) × 20% + £10,050 (Year 3) + [2028–29 fee] (Year 4) – giving a total of around £21,543 plus the unknown final year. Universities need to work through these calculations for every programme variant and present the results clearly.

    Accelerated degrees: Two-year accelerated degrees have higher annual caps (£11,750 for 2026-27, £12,060 for 2027-28). A student choosing between a standard three-year degree and an accelerated two-year version is making a comparison that matters – £29,375 over three years versus approximately £23,810 over two years (for a 2026 entrant). CMA209’s requirement that prices be “realistic, meaningful and attainable” for the product as advertised suggests universities should be helping students make this comparison, not obscuring it with per-year figures that don’t facilitate like-for-like assessment.

    Part-time study: Part-time degrees stretch over 4–6+ years, accumulating more annual increases. The maths becomes more complex and the cumulative cost may substantially exceed the nominal fee multiplied by FTE years. Again, the guidance suggests universities should be doing this calculation for students, not leaving them to work it out themselves.

    Home students versus international students

    For home students in England, the government has now confirmed two years of fee increases, with a stated intention to legislate for automatic annual uprating thereafter. Ironically, the specific inflation measure remains technically unconfirmed – the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper indicated fees would rise “in line with inflation” but didn’t specify which index.

    You and I know that the figures are the OBR’s projections of inflation as of today, but that’s hardly an “objective verifiable inflation index.” Universities can at least show the trajectory for students whose entire degree is now priced.

    For international students, the position is much more exposed. Here, fee-setting is entirely at the university’s discretion, and annual uplifts of several hundred pounds – or several per cent – are routine.

    If a university can state “fees will increase by up to X per cent annually,” then it can calculate a maximum total cost for the degree. The guidance’s logic would suggest it should be displaying that maximum – or at minimum, the inflation cap and worked examples – with equal prominence to the Year 1 headline figure. Asking a student to commit to a multi-year programme on the basis of “£28,000 in year 1 – fees may rise in future years” without any structure looks exactly like the sort of thing this guidance is trying to stamp out.

    The universities that have moved to fixed-fee guarantees are in the cleanest compliance position. If the fee genuinely won’t increase, you can advertise Year 1 and the cumulative total is just three or four times that figure. Everyone else – particularly those with vague “may increase with inflation” language buried in terms – is more exposed.

    The deposits problem

    The deposit practices that have become widespread in international recruitment also deserve particular scrutiny under the new framework.

    According to UUKi survey data from last year, two thirds of providers charge deposits for international students at a specific monetary amount, with a further 17 per cent setting deposits as a percentage of the tuition fee – often 50 per cent.

    Universities have been encouraged to set earlier deadlines for applications and deposits as a way of “managing risk” – but the effect is to shift that risk onto students, who must commit substantial sums before they have complete information about accommodation, living costs, or visa outcomes.

    Of course universities have been explicitly encouraged to use deposits to reduce the likelihood of students transferring out of the degree programme. The logic is straightforward – if a student has already paid £5,000–15,000 that they’ll lose if they change their mind, they’re locked in.

    But that sits uncomfortably with OfS Condition F2, which requires registered providers to publish clear information about transfer arrangements – and with OfS’ legal duty to monitor the availability and utilisation of student transfer schemes.

    More broadly, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 already constrains what universities can do. Cancellation or early termination charges must be limited to what is “fair and proportionate” – meaning the university can recover its genuine costs or lost profit, but cannot levy charges designed to punish students for changing their mind or to scare them into staying in the contract.

    When challenged, universities might argue that the CAS allocated to the student could have gone to someone else, so they’ve lost the profit they would have made. But if the university hasn’t actually recruited to its CAS allocation – if numbers are down and places remain unfilled – that argument collapses.

    CMA’s existing guidance is clear that traders can only retain money to cover actual costs and losses, not to enforce compliance targets or prevent student choice. Universities aren’t really allowed to shift the burden of their regulatory obligations or commercial risks onto students.

    DMCC adds further layers. Under the duty of professional diligence, universities must act with the skill, care, and honesty that a reasonable trader should exercise in line with good market practice.

    Breaching that duty becomes unlawful when it distorts, or risks distorting, a consumer’s decision-making – a bar that drops further when the consumers in question are vulnerable. Practices that exploit a student’s weakness, confusion, or lack of experience can breach the Act even if no actual loss can yet be proven.

    OfS’ own prohibited behaviours list – currently applicable only to new registrants but expected to be extended – includes:

    …requiring a student to pay a disproportionately high sum of money as penalty to the provider or for services which have not yet been supplied, where the student decides not to sign the contract or withdraws from the contract after signing it.

    In its consultation response, OfS argued that the prohibited behaviours it was proposing closely reflect existing legal requirements “with which traders in any sector are required to comply.”

    If that’s right, then the current deposit practices of many universities may in many cases already be legally questionable – the prohibited behaviours list just makes explicit the kinds of practices consumer protection law is already concerned about.

    The interaction with immigration policy is awkward. The Legal Migration white paper signalled that UKVI will soon be demanding visa refusal rates of less than 10 per cent and course enrolment rates of at least 90 per cent of CASs issued.

    In the C5 consultation, one respondent suggested that OfS should work closely with UKVI to “agree a position on non-repayment of deposits for visa-sponsored students” – presumably because universities are using deposit forfeiture to manage these compliance targets.

    But again – universities can’t shift the burden of their regulatory obligations onto students. If a student’s visa is refused through no fault of their own, or if they withdraw before enrolment for legitimate reasons, treating a 50 per cent deposit as simply forfeited looks difficult to defend as “fair and proportionate” under consumer protection law.

    Postgraduate provision

    I’ve focused on undergraduate study here, but the transparency issues are at least as acute – arguably more so – for postgraduate provision.

    Taught masters programmes of one year limit the in-contract increase problem. But doctoral programmes run for 3–4+ years, with annual fee increases that are often entirely uncapped for international students. A PhD student starting at £25,000 per year with 5 per cent annual increases faces a four-year total of over £107,000 – significantly more than £100,000 if they’d assumed stable fees.

    The sums involved make transparency even more important, and current practice is often worse than undergraduate – many doctoral programme pages show only the current-year fee with no indication of how it will change.

    Postgraduate loans for home students are capped and don’t cover the full cost of many programmes, creating an additional transparency issue – the gap between the loan available and the fee charged is itself a mandatory cost that students need to understand upfront.

    The deposit problem is particularly tricky for international PGT students. A student who paid a 50 per cent deposit on a £20,000 masters programme – £10,000 – and then changed their mind about the course, or had accommodation fall through, or discovered that the cost of living information the university supplied was three years out of date, faces losing that entire sum unless they fit restrictive refund criteria.

    They’re locked in, or they’re out of pocket – and the consumer protection framework suggests many of those lock-ins may be unfair.

    Agents and intermediaries

    The guidance is explicit that both the party making an invitation to purchase and the trader on whose behalf it is made can be liable:

    If the product is being marketed on the seller’s behalf or in their name, the seller may also be responsible if the invitation to purchase fails to comply with the requirements of the UCP provisions.

    This has big implications for a sector that has become heavily dependent on international recruitment agents. Agents are involved in over 50 per cent of international student admissions – in some markets, the figure reaches 70 per cent.

    Under CMA209, if an agent in Lagos or Mumbai is advertising “Study at [University] for £22,000” without disclosing annual increases or the mechanism by which fees will rise, both the agent and the university are potentially in breach of the price transparency provisions.

    The guidance says that traders using other businesses to market their products must ensure they have provided those businesses with all the information required by the DMCC Act, and must also ensure that those businesses are complying with their obligations under the DMCC Act.

    If we’re honest, that’s compliance burden most universities are not currently equipped to manage. Many do not systematically audit agent materials. Commission arrangements are commercially sensitive and rarely transparent. Sub-agents – informal intermediaries whose details may not even be known to the contracting university – add further layers of opacity.

    The guidance creates, at minimum, an expectation that universities will need much tighter control over what partners and agents say about fees and increases.

    The guidance also notes that:

    …if an invitation to purchase is directed at UK consumers, it must comply with the relevant UCP provisions, even if the trader making the invitation to purchase is located outside the UK.”

    That jurisdictional reach catches overseas agents advertising to prospective international students who will study in the UK.

    Bang average

    Consumer protection law uses an “average consumer” test – would the practice mislead or affect the transactional decision of a typical consumer? But that test isn’t applied uniformly.

    Where a practice is directed at a particular group, the average consumer is judged by reference to that group. And where a practice is likely to materially distort the behaviour of consumers who are “particularly vulnerable” due to mental or physical infirmity, age, or credulity, it’s assessed from the perspective of the average member of that vulnerable group.

    DMCC recognises that vulnerability can arise from permanent characteristics – age, disability, low literacy – or from temporary circumstances like bereavement, financial stress, or life crisis.

    Applying from abroad to study in an unfamiliar country, navigating a complex visa system, relying on agents whose incentives may not align with your own, committing substantial deposits before you have complete information – all of this creates vulnerability in the consumer protection sense.

    In higher education, several groups of students could reasonably be considered vulnerable consumers in this context:

    International students face acute information asymmetry. They may be unfamiliar with UK consumer protection norms, language barriers may affect comprehension of complex fee terms, they’re making decisions from a distance often based on agent advice, and the financial stakes – total cost of attendance including living costs, visas, flights – are enormous. The combination of agent recruitment practices and student vulnerability is a killer – agents have financial incentives that may not align with student interests, students may not know agents are paid by universities, and the power imbalance is huge.

    Young people – most undergraduate applicants are 17ish when they make application decisions – are making one of the largest financial commitments of their lives with limited experience of contracts, consumer rights, or long-term financial planning. The guidance’s examples of misleading practices often involve consumers failing to notice or understand pricing complexity – that risk is heightened for young people navigating an unfamiliar system.

    First-generation HE students lack family knowledge to draw on. They may not know what questions to ask, may be more susceptible to impressive-sounding marketing claims, and may not have access to informal networks that help more advantaged students navigate the system.

    Students from disadvantaged backgrounds have a different vulnerability – the financial implications of hidden costs or unexpected fee increases fall harder on those with less family buffer. The same opaque pricing that a wealthy student might absorb as an inconvenience could derail the plans of a student with no margin for error.

    DMCC requires traders to design their sales practices, contracts, and communications with these vulnerabilities in mind. It is no defence to say that the “average” consumer would cope – if a foreseeable group of people is likely to be misled, disadvantaged, or harmed, the practice breaches the Act.

    The duty of professional diligence demands that universities act with the skill, care, and honesty that a reasonable trader should exercise in line with good market practice. Practices that (even inadvertently) exploit weakness, confusion, or lack of experience can be unlawful even if no actual loss can yet be proven.

    If university marketing practices disproportionately affect vulnerable groups – and there’s good reason to think they do – the compliance standard should be assessed accordingly.

    A fee presentation that might not mislead an experienced, sophisticated consumer could still breach the rules if it’s likely to mislead the students actually being recruited. The “average consumer” for an international recruitment agent’s materials isn’t a UK-based parent with professional advice – it’s someone in China, Nigeria or India trying to understand what three years of study will actually cost.

    OfS is coming

    If all of this feels a bit theoretical – the CMA has guidance, but will anyone actually enforce it? – OfS’ parallel moves should concentrate minds.

    OfS has already been pointing providers in this direction:

    …if providers are making changes that increase fees for new entrants in line with prescribed limits, they should make sure that prospective students have access to information about the full cost of their course, for the duration of the course, before they commit themselves to undertaking a higher education course.

    That language – “full cost of their course, for the duration of the course, before they commit” – is close to what CMA209 now makes a legal requirement. The sector can’t reasonably claim it had no warning.

    OfS has also established an important ceiling for continuing students – they can’t be charged more than the lower of either the relevant prescribed fee limit, or the level to which fees can be increased in line with the inflationary statement recorded in the Access and Participation Plan (or annual fee information return) that was in effect in their year of entry.

    That inflationary statement mechanism – which effectively caps what returning students can be charged – creates a documented ceiling that universities could, in principle, use to calculate and disclose maximum cumulative costs at the point of admission.

    It also means that the universities on my spreadsheet that have already increased their fees for continuing students beyond that which was committed to in the APP are very much risking it for a biscuit.

    Sinclair C5

    Of course OfS has published a new initial condition of registration, C5 (“Treating students fairly”), a version of which it says it will consult on applying to existing registered providers imminently. The condition is currently in force for new registrants – extending it to the existing register would make fee transparency a live regulatory issue for every provider in England.

    C5’s version of “consumer protection law” explicitly includes the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 – so non-compliance with CMA209’s price transparency provisions would directly implicate the condition. And the scope is, if anything, broader than CMA209 itself.

    The condition covers:

    …any arrangements the provider has made or plans to make to attract individuals to study at the provider, encourage individuals to submit applications to study at the provider, or to otherwise communicate with students or anyone with an interest in studying at the provider.

    The accompanying guidance defines “information about the provider” as anything individuals may rely on in their decision-making – including:

    …emails or other forms of communication; presentations delivered at open days; any written material used to inform communications (such as scripts for recruitment phone calls).

    On agents, C5 is if anything more explicit than CMA209. The guidance states that:

    …where a provider works with recruitment agents or other entities similarly working on its behalf, it will be held accountable for their behaviour.”

    And the provider must:

    …undertake appropriate due diligence on all third parties and on all third parties’ arrangements.

    On partnerships, the condition “applies to all higher education provided through all forms of partnership arrangements” and may result in “more than one provider being responsible for compliance with this condition in relation to the same student.”

    Delivery providers in franchise arrangements will have to must submit lead provider documents – including “template student contracts (including terms related to tuition fees and additional costs)” – and if they think those documents contain problematic provisions, they’re expected to work with the lead provider to address this before applying for registration.

    What are universities actually selling?

    More broadly, the price transparency requirements raise an uncomfortable question – what, exactly, is the “product” that universities advertise?

    Prospectuses don’t just show lecture theatres and libraries. They feature students playing sports, performing in shows, running societies, going on trips. Open days tour the SU facilities. Marketing copy talks about “joining a vibrant community” and “making friends for life.”

    If that’s part of how the product is marketed, CMA209 suggests it’s part of the product – and if accessing it costs extra, those costs are material information. A university advertising a “great and vibrant SU” without mentioning that club membership fees typically run to £5–50 per society, that sports clubs charge for kit and fixtures, and that participation in activities often costs money beyond tuition, is arguably presenting a version of the product whose price doesn’t reflect what students would actually pay to access it.

    Where a free inter-campus bus or shuttle is part of that promotional bundle – the thing that makes a multi-site timetable viable without extra cost – withdrawing it mid-course effectively increases the mandatory costs faced by students. At minimum, that raises the same kinds of questions about hidden charges and changes to the product that the price transparency regime is designed to address.

    For students from lower-income backgrounds who chose the university partly based on its marketed student life, discovering the hidden costs of participation is a form of bait-and-switch – even if legally defensible.

    The logic extends to living costs. Section 227 of the DMCC Act prohibits misleading omissions – failing to provide material information that consumers need for informed decisions. For students choosing between universities, living costs are often the second-largest expense after tuition, and they vary enormously by location. A student choosing between London and a smaller city could face a £15,000+ difference over three years – that’s material.

    Where universities make claims about accommodation, those claims must be accurate. “Affordable accommodation from £X per week” is misleading if that figure refers only to heavily oversubscribed halls available only to first-years, while most students pay significantly more in the private rented sector. Marketing materials featuring halls and campus living are potentially misleading if most students spend most of their degree in private accommodation of significantly lower quality at higher cost.

    Even a university in a notably expensive area that makes living costs look lower than they really are in its marketing may be committing a misleading omission – and OfS’ Condition C5 reinforces this by covering:

    …anything individuals may rely on in their decision making about whether (or what) to study at the provider.

    What happens now

    The unfair commercial practices provisions of the DMCC Act came into force on 6 April 2025. This is not prospective regulation – it applies now. The CMA has indicated it will update its sector-specific guidance in light of the new Act, but no timetable has been given for HE – and the absence of sector-specific guidance does not provide a grace period.

    The CMA now has direct enforcement powers under the DMCC Act. It doesn’t need to go to court to determine that an infringement has occurred – it can make that determination itself and impose financial penalties directly on businesses and individuals. The reputational and financial exposure for non-compliance has increased substantially.

    There will be some in the sector suggesting this is all rather tiresome – more compliance burden when universities should be focused on teaching and research or restructuring for survival. Sure, sure – but for me, that response misses the point.

    Consider what the current system asks of applicants. A 17-year-old browsing a website is expected to notice that £9,535 is a Year 1 figure, intuit that fees will rise annually, locate the relevant inflation mechanism buried in terms and conditions, run compound calculations across three or four years, and identify which “additional course costs” are genuinely optional versus effectively mandatory – all while simultaneously choosing A-levels and writing personal statements.

    It’s not a reasonable expectation. It’s a system designed by people who understand it for people who don’t, and the information asymmetry falls hardest on exactly the students who can least afford to get it wrong – first-generation applicants without family knowledge to draw on, international students navigating an unfamiliar system from thousands of miles away, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with no financial buffer for unexpected costs.

    I’m no lawyer, and some of the above might not turn out to be technically required, but it seems to me that the point here isn’t to do the bare minimum to stay on the right side of the CMA, or in England, OfS.

    It’s to recognise that when you transfer the cost of higher education onto students and graduates – when you ask them to take on £30,000, £50,000, £80,000 of debt for a degree – you take on a corresponding obligation to help them understand what they’re buying and what they’ll pay. That means straining every sinew to make pricing clear, not hunting for loopholes that let you technically comply while keeping the complexity intact.

    In other words, however much of a pain in the arse it is, transparency isn’t bureaucratic overreach. It’s just what fairness looks like when you write it down.

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  • No Cost for Undergrads With Family Income Below $100K

    No Cost for Undergrads With Family Income Below $100K

    Johns Hopkins University announced Thursday that it’s eliminating tuition, fees and living expenses for its Homewood campus undergraduates whose families make less than $100,000 a year; students whose families earn up to $200,000 will pay no tuition. It joins a wave of other institutions—especially private, selective ones—that have announced tuition guarantees.

    In a news release, the university said the change “means students from a majority of American families, including middle-class families earning above the national median household income of $87,730, can attend Hopkins at no expense.”

    Further, Hopkins said, “Most families with incomes up to $250,000 will continue to qualify for significant financial aid. Even those with annual incomes exceeding $250,000 may qualify, especially when there are multiple children in college at the same time.”

    Most of the university’s undergrads study on the Homewood campus, in North Baltimore. The release said the new aid levels “will go into effect for eligible current students in the spring 2026 semester and for new, incoming students next fall.”

    In a message to the university community, JHU president Ron Daniels said that since businessman and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg donated $1.8 billion to the university in 2018, Hopkins’s share of Pell Grant–eligible students rose from 15.4 percent to 24.1 percent, the highest proportion in university history.

    “Our financial aid investment has continued to grow, inspired by Mayor Bloomberg’s transformative gift, with generous contributions by more than 1,200 donors who have given $240 million for financial aid at Hopkins over the last several years,” Daniels wrote. “We are in their collective debt.”

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  • Congress Tackles College Cost Transparency

    Congress Tackles College Cost Transparency

    Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-LA, advocated for his own legislation, the College Transparency Act, as potential solution to the issue.

    Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

    After passing a sweeping higher ed overhaul in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Congress now has its sights set on reforming college cost transparency. In a hearing Thursday, members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions questioned experts on how to make college pricing—and how costs compare to student outcomes—more understandable to families.

    “You don’t buy a car without comparing prices, quality and finance options. The same is true for buying a home. Why can we not do this for higher ed?” asked Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the committee and recently issued a request for information about the cost of higher education.

    The hearing follows a House hearing in September on the same topic—and including one repeat witness, Justin Draeger, senior vice president of affordability for Strada Education Foundation.

    Cost transparency has long been a pain point for both students and institutions, who have attempted to clarify via marketing campaigns, improved price calculator tools and tuition resets that their costs of attendance are often lower than their sticker price would indicate. Students, meanwhile, struggle to find reliable information about the costs of their prospective institutions, leaving them without the financial information they need to decide what institution to attend.

    Now, Congressional Republicans are taking notice—and are tying efforts to improve affordability and cost transparency in with their existing focus on the return on investment for students and taxpayers.

    At Thursday’s hearing, lawmakers and witnesses alike stressed how little information is available to students about the price of college, with research showing that most students overestimate the price of a public college education. Witnesses also brought up parents’ and families’ confusion about aid offer letters, which the Government Accountability Office has found often understate or fail to include the net price students will actually be paying.

    Cassidy stressed the need for transparency as it relates to outcomes and return on investment. Students should be able to compare graduation rates and projected incomes of earning a degree at two different institutions, he said, to give families an accurate picture of what they’re paying for when they pay tuition.

    The two Democratic witnesses, meanwhile, argued that college cost transparency is ineffective without also focusing on college affordability—something that is being worsened not only by increasing tuition costs but also by the larger cost-of-living crisis. Nontuition costs, said Mark Huelsman, Director of Policy and Advocacy at The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, make up the bulk of the cost of attendance. He added that if student aren’t able to afford food or housing, that can severely impact their ability to succeed in college.

    “I urge this committee not just to find ways to increase clarity, but to do everything in its power to lower the price that students pay,” he said.

    Bipartisan Solutions?

    Legislators pointed toward several potential legislative solutions that they said had support on both sides of the aisle. That list included Cassidy’s College Transparency Act, a bill that would provide more detailed information on costs, academic outcomes and career outcomes of specific programs and majors. Cassidy has championed the bill for years, alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren, CTA’s other lead author, but Rep. Virginia Foxx opposed the measure when she led the House education committee. Foxx, who ultimately proposed her own effort to track students’ outcomes, resisted CTA due to privacy concerns. Cassidy noted during the hearing that the bill includes strict data security standards.

    Meanwhile, Sen. Jon Husted, an Ohio Republican, also touted his bill with fellow Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama—the Debt, Earnings, and Cost Information Disclosure for Education Act—which would make changes to the Department of Education’s College Scorecard. It would require the resource to include information on average loan amounts in a given academic program, as well as default rates, how long it takes graduates to pay off their loans and how that debt compares to their earnings.

    That information would help prospective students “know exactly what they’re getting themselves into before they make a decision to make a huge, huge investment,” Husted said.

    Witnesses enumerated their own cost transparency wish lists.

    Draeger said, among other things, that the federal government should regulate financial aid offers to use straightforward and standardized language. Huelsman, on the other hand, argued that the “simplest way, and the most powerful way” to make college costs transparent is to make college tuition- or debt-free. He also said that the Trump administration appears to be working against, not toward, cost transparency in higher ed.

    “Many of the bipartisan reforms being discussed today require staffing capacity at the Department of Education that frankly, at this moment, do not exist, including at the Institute for Education Sciences,” he said. “Meanwhile, the Trump administration has worked to dismantle the CFPB, which provides oversight and essential information to borrowers, and conducts essential research on the student loan market. Sadly, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act takes us in the wrong direction on both affordability and transparency.”

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  • Beyond the Price Tag: How Cost Shapes Families’ College Choices

    Beyond the Price Tag: How Cost Shapes Families’ College Choices

    Mother and teenage daughter in kitchen looking at a laptop PC
    Perception of cost has a major impact on college choice.

    Choosing a college is rarely just about academics, location, or prestige. For most families, it comes down to the question of cost. The numbers on a price tag do not just suggest affordability; they shape what feels possible. Sticker shock alone can quietly close a door before a student even fills out an application, while clear, honest information can keep dreams in play. In this moment of rising costs and growing financial anxiety, understanding how families navigate affordability has never mattered more.

    Before examining what RNL’s latest research shows, it helps to step back and see where the broader conversation is heading. Recent studies highlight how affordability, family background, and perceptions of cost steer the college search. Again and again, the evidence points to a simple truth: for families, financial reality and perception are tightly linked (Stabler-Havener, 2024). This context is essential for understanding the RNL findings and considering how colleges can truly meet families where they are.

    What research tells us

    The research is clear: affordability, family income, and perceptions of cost are among the strongest forces shaping college choices. In one recent study, only three in ten students who believed college was unaffordable planned to enroll, showing how perception alone can narrow opportunities (Stabler-Havener, 2024).

    Policy leaders are responding. State priorities now center on boosting affordability and families’ sense of value (Harnisch, Burns, Heckert, Kunkle, & Weeden, 2024). As families weigh cost and worth, the call for reform grows louder.

    Family perspective lies at the heart of these decisions. Financial worries shape the choices parents and students make, often shrinking the list of options for those with fewer resources (Chuong-Nguyen, 2025). Parental guidance and support are deeply shaped by income and stress, sometimes as early as elementary school, when children first start to believe in what is possible (Keeling, 2025). For many out-of-state students, aid and affordability matter more than distance or campus life (Stansell, 2025). While the campus experience may guide the final decision, cost remains the gatekeeper. Together, these studies send a clear message: real and perceived affordability remain central to college access.

    Policy changes with big impact

    Federal policy changes are reshaping the landscape of affordability as well. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act keeps undergraduate loan limits intact but introduces two significant changes: a $65,000 lifetime cap on Parent PLUS loans, and a rule eliminating Pell Grant eligibility if scholarships already cover the full cost of attendance. While these details may sound technical, their impact is deeply personal. Middle- and low-income families, and first-generation students, are most likely to feel squeezed by these new limits (American Council on Education, 2025; National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, 2025). These changes may become the tipping point for families already sensitive to sticker price.

    What this means for colleges

    The research suggests several practical steps:

    • Make affordability unmistakably clear. Families often overestimate cost and underestimate available aid. Tools like net price calculators and plain-language award letters can help (Chuong-Nguyen, 2025; Stabler-Havener, 2024).
    • Reach parents early. Parents start shaping their child’s college expectations years before high school. Outreach in middle school can expand what families believe is possible (Keeling, 2025).
    • Highlight value as well as cost. Families want to know if college is worth the investment. Colleges can tell stories of career outcomes, alum success, and community, not just numbers (Harnisch et al., 2024; Stansell, 2025).
    • Connect finances to student experience. Students care about campus feel as much as aid. Affordability should be shown alongside housing, safety, clubs, and social life (Stansell, 2025).
    • Prioritize equity. First-generation and lower-income families face more information gaps and greater stress. Targeted advising, financial literacy programs, and direct communication can help bridge that divide (Chuong-Nguyen, 2025; Keeling, 2025).

    What RNL research tells us

    While these studies offer a broad view of how cost and perception shape college decisions, the lived experience of families comes into even sharper focus when we look at recent data from the 2025 Prospective Family Engagement Report. The findings from RNL, Ardeo, and CampusESP provide a window into what families are navigating right now: the confusion, the questions, and sometimes, the sense of being overwhelmed by the college search. Examining this data helps us move from general trends to the specific realities facing families today, and shows where institutions can make the most meaningful difference.

    The bottom line

    For families, cost is never just a number. It is tangled up with their hopes, sense of security, and vision for the future: sticker price, net cost, debt, and perception; all of these shape what feels possible. For colleges, the work goes beyond lowering costs. The real challenge is helping families understand those costs, connect them to real outcomes, and expand what each student believes is within reach.

    Families’ need for clear information

    The 2025 Prospective Family Engagement Report (RNL, Ardeo, & CampusESP, 2025) found that 99% of nearly 10,000 families surveyed believe clear cost, tuition, and academic information is essential. Yet almost one in four families cannot find it. The gap is even larger for first-generation families (37 percent) and those earning under $60,000 (43%). These gaps are not just inconvenient; they are real barriers.

    Faces behind the data

    Consider the single parent in rural Ohio, working two jobs and searching late at night for financial aid information. She finds buried calculators and confusing language and assumes the sticker price is final. The dream quietly shrinks.

    Alternatively, think of the middle-income family in suburban Atlanta. They make too much for much-needed aid but still feel stretched thin. They cross colleges off their list without ever seeing the actual net cost.

    Income-level differences in cost perception

    The study shows clear patterns (RNL, Ardeo, & CampusESP, 2025):

    • Families under $60,000 have the lowest awareness of cost tools, face the most difficulty finding aid information, and are most likely to rule out schools early due to sticker price.
    • Those earning $60,000–$149,000 have moderate awareness, but three in four have eliminated colleges based on sticker price alone.
    • Families earning $150,000 or more have the highest awareness and least trouble finding information, but even among them, almost three in four have ruled out colleges due to price.

    Financial aid and scholarships: The deciding factor

    Four out of five families list aid and scholarships among their top five decision factors; for almost two in five, it is the most important factor. The urgency is even greater for first-generation families (54%) and low-income households (68%).

    • 38% say aid and scholarships top the list.
    • 43% place them in the top five.

    Even among the highest-income families, more than a quarter cite aid as their top factor, and nearly half put it in their top five.

    Sticker shock and final cost

    • 72% of families have ruled out colleges because of sticker price. Middle-income families lead (76%), followed by high-income (74%) and low-income families (66%).
    • 65% say the final cost after aid is the biggest dealbreaker, consistent across first-generation (66%), continuing generation (65%), and especially middle-income families (73%).

    Financing difficulty and loan anxiety

    Paying for college feels “very difficult” for 28% of families, and “difficult” for another 27%. The challenge is sharpest for low-income families (47% “very difficult”) and first-generation families (40%). Even among households earning over $150,000, one in five reports that paying for college will be “very difficult.” Anxiety about borrowing is widespread; 61% of families feel uneasy about loans, regardless of income (RNL, Ardeo, & CampusESP, 2025).

    Implications for colleges

    • Clarity is currency. A trust gap grows when nearly every family values clear cost information, but the most price-sensitive families cannot find it. Make cost information unmistakable, on websites, in print, in portals, and through personal outreach.
    • Lead with your aid story. Aid and scholarships top the list for most families. Burying this information wastes a key point of connection. Use real examples and plain language.
    • Defuse sticker shock early. With nearly three-quarters of families eliminating schools based on sticker price, net price calculators should be prominent, easy to use, and personalized.
    • Do not forget middle-income families. They often miss out on need-based aid but are just as price-sensitive. They deserve targeted outreach and clear explanations of their options.
    • Address financing challenges directly. Offer flexible payment plans, start conversations about the total cost early, and provide tools for first-generation and low-income families. Even high-income families appreciate empathy and honesty.
    • Reframe borrowing. With 61 percent anxious about loans, transparency about repayment timelines, graduate earnings, and debt-to-income ratios is critical.

    The emotional weight of cost

    Cost is never just a number; it is an emotional flashpoint. Families weigh college prices as figures on a spreadsheet and as symbols of opportunity, security, and trust. Information gaps hit first-generation and low-income families hardest, but financial pressure is universal:

    • Aid matters.
    • Sticker price stings.
    • Financing feels difficult for almost everyone.
    • Borrowing brings real anxiety.

    The colleges that thrive will treat cost not only as a financial challenge but as a moment to build trust and expand possibilities for every family they serve.

    Revolutionize your financial aid offers with video

    References
    • American Council on Education. (2025, July 29). Summary: One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1). Division of Government Relations and National Engagement.
    • Chuong-Nguyen, M. Q. (2025). College application experience: Personal and institutional factors affecting high school seniors’ college-going decision-making process and college choice (Doctoral dissertation, Concordia University Irvine).
    • Harnisch, T., Burns, R., Heckert, K., Kunkle, K., & Weeden, D. (2024). State priorities for higher education in 2024. State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO).
    • Keeling, C. (2025). Perceptions of parents regarding their participation in decision-making related to the academic and technical education preparation of their children’s career pathways (Doctoral dissertation, Purdue University).
    • National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. (2025, July). Frequently asked questions about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. NAICU.
    • RNL, Ardeo, & CampusESP. (2025). 2025 Prospective family engagement report. Ruffalo Noel Levitz.
    • Stabler-Havener, J. M. (2024). Interactions between quality, affordability, and income groups at private colleges and universities (Doctoral dissertation, Fordham University).
    • Stansell, L. J. (2025). Driving enrollment amidst change: Exploring college choice of out-of-state students (Doctoral dissertation, University of Tennessee, Knoxville). TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/12424

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  • When young girls pay the cost of climate change

    When young girls pay the cost of climate change

    Jaffarabad, Balochistan: When floodwaters swept through Shaista’s village in 2022, they didn’t just take her family’s home and farmland, they also took away her childhood. Just 14 years old, Shaista was married off to a man twice her age in exchange for a small dowry. 

    Her father, a daily wage laborer, said it was the most painful decision he has ever made.

    “I didn’t want to do it,” he said, his eyes fixed on the cracked earth where his fields used to be. “But I have four other children to feed and no land to farm. We lost everything.”

    Stories like Shaista’s are becoming increasingly common across Balochistan, Pakistan’s poorest province. In 2022, devastating floods there driven by record-breaking monsoon rains and accelerated glacial melt linked to climate change, displaced over 1.5 million people.

    There is worldwide recognition that extreme weather events — not just floods, but drought, heatwaves, tornados and hurricanes — are becoming more frequent and less predictable as the planet warms. These events have devastating and long-term consequences for people in poor regions. 

    Young girls as assets 

    In districts like Jaffarabad and Chowki Jamali, the aftermath of the disaster has left families grappling with deepening poverty, food insecurity and crushing debt. For many, marrying off their young daughters is no longer just a tradition, it’s a form of survival.

    A 2023 survey by the Provincial Disaster Management Authority reported a 15% spike in underage marriages in flood-affected regions. Child rights activists warn that these numbers likely underestimate the scale of the crisis, as most cases go unreported.

    “In flood-hit areas, families are exchanging their daughters to repay loans, buy food or simply reduce the number of mouths to feed,” said Maryam Jamali, a social worker with the Madad Community organization. “We’ve documented girls as young as 12 being married to men in their forties or fifties. This isn’t about tradition anymore, it’s desperation.”

    Bride prices, once a source of negotiation and family prestige, have plummeted due to the economic collapse. Activists report instances where girls are married for as little as 100,000 Pakistani rupees (roughly US$360), or in some cases, simply traded for livestock or debt forgiveness.

    “There are villages where girls are married off like assets being liquidated,” said Sikander Bizenjo, a co-founder of the Balochistan Youth Action Committee. “It’s not just a violation of rights, it’s a systemic failure rooted in climate vulnerability, poverty and legal gaps.”

    Marriage as debt payment

    In Usta Muhammad, another flood-ravaged district, 13-year-old Sumaira (name changed) was married off just weeks after her family’s mud house collapsed. Her parents received 300,000 rupees (a little over $1,000) from the groom’s family, which they used to rebuild their shelter and repay moneylenders. 

    Now pregnant, Sumaira, has dropped out of school and rarely leaves her husband’s house.

    “I miss my friends and school,” she told us softly. “I wanted to become a teacher. But my parents said there was no other way.”

    Child marriages like Shaista’s and Sumaira’s carry lasting consequences: early pregnancies that endanger both mother and child, disrupted education, psychological trauma and lifetime economic dependence. 

    A study following the 2010 floods found maternal mortality rates in some affected regions were as high as 381 per 100,000 live births, one of the highest in the world.

    “These girls are thrust into adult roles before they’re ready,” said Dr. Sameena Khan, a gynecologist in Quetta. “They face dangerous pregnancies, and many have no access to medical care. Their childhood ends the moment they say ‘yes’ or are forced to.”

    Giving girls an alternative to marriage

    The crisis unfolding in Balochistan is not unique. Across the world, climate shocks and civil strife are causing displacement that intensifies the risk of child marriage. 

    In 2024, News Decoder correspondent Katherine Lake Berz interviewed 14-year-old Ola, who nearly became a child bride after her Syrian family, displaced by war and facing severe poverty, began arranging her marriage to an older man. But before that coil happen, Ola was able to enroll in Alsama, a non-governmental organization that provides secondary education to refugee girls. In less than a year, she was reading English at A2 level.

    Alsama, which has more than 900 students across four schools and a waiting list of hundreds, has been able to show girls and their parents that education can offer an alternative path to security and dignity.

    In Balochistan, the absence of legal safeguards compounds the crisis. The Sindh province banned child marriage in 2013 under the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act which set the legal age at 18 for both girls and boys. But Balochistan has yet to enact a comparable law. 

    Nationally, Pakistan remains bound by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires nations to end child marriage but enforcement remains patchy. And Pakistan is not one of the 16 countries that have also signed onto the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages, which forbids marriage before a girl reaches puberty and requires complete freedom in the choice of a spouse. 

    Pakistan needs to reform its laws, said human rights lawyer Ali Dayan Hasan. “Without a clear provincial law and mechanisms to enforce it, girls are at the mercy of social pressure and economic collapse,” Hasan said. “We need legal reform that matches the urgency of the climate and humanitarian crises we are facing.”

    Attempts to introduce child marriage laws in Balochistan have repeatedly stalled amid political resistance and lack of awareness. Religious and tribal leaders argue that such laws interfere with cultural norms, while government officials cite limited administrative capacity in rural areas.

    Bringing an end to child marriages

    The solution, experts agree, is multi-pronged: legal reform, economic recovery and access to education.

    “We can’t end child marriage without rebuilding livelihoods,” said Bizenjo. “Families need food, land, healthcare and hope. If they can’t survive, they’ll continue to sacrifice their daughters.”

    Grassroots organizations like Madad and Sujag Sansar provide vocational training, safe shelters and legal awareness sessions in flood-affected areas. In one case, Sujag Sansar intervened to stop the marriage of 10-year-old Mehtab in Sindh, enrolling her in a sewing workshop instead.

    UNICEF estimates that child marriages could increase by 18% in Pakistan due to the 2022 floods, potentially reversing years of progress. The agency is urging governments to integrate child protection into climate adaptation and disaster relief programs.

    “Girls must not be forgotten in climate response plans,” said UNICEF Pakistan’s representative Abdullah Fadil. “Their future cannot be the cost of every flood, every drought, every crisis.”

    Back in Jaffarabad, Shaista now lives with her husband’s family in a two-room house. Her dreams of becoming a doctor have faded, replaced by household chores and looming motherhood. “I wanted to study more,” she said. “But now I have to take care of others.”

    Questions to consider:

    1. How does the marriage of young girls connect to climate change?

    2. How can societies end the practice of child marriage?

    3. Why do you think only 16 countries have signed the UN treaty that requires consent for marriages?

     

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  • Dollar Tree and the Rising Cost of Survival

    Dollar Tree and the Rising Cost of Survival

    While Wall Street celebrates record highs, Main Street grapples with rising costs that strain household budgets. Dollar Tree, once synonymous with affordability, has seen its pricing structure evolve significantly. In 2021, the company increased its baseline price from $1 to $1.25, and by 2025, introduced items priced up to $10 in select stores.

    For residents in food deserts—areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food—stores like Dollar Tree serve as essential sources for groceries. However, these stores often stock predominantly ultra-processed foods, contributing to dietary challenges. A study by Tufts, Harvard, and the USDA found that while dollar store food purchases scored low on the Healthy Eating Index, households shopping there didn’t significantly differ in overall diet quality from those shopping primarily at grocery stores.

    The expansion of dollar stores in low-income communities has been linked to exacerbating food insecurity. These stores often lack fresh produce and healthy staples, leading to diets high in processed foods. Research indicates that small food retailers are less likely than supermarkets to sell healthy staple foods, further entrenching food insecurity in these areas.

    Despite the financial gains reflected in the stock market, the affordability gap widens for working-class families. Economic gains at the top do not trickle down to the communities that need them most. As investment portfolios swell, the affordability gap grows, and the promise of basic necessities remains increasingly out of reach. For working-class families and those living in under-resourced neighborhoods, the soaring market feels less like a sign of prosperity and more like a reminder of growing inequality.

    In addition to rising costs, recent changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are further impacting low-income households. A new law backed by the Trump administration and signed in July 2025 is set to reduce SNAP benefits for 2.4 million Americans by expanding work requirements to additional groups, including parents of children aged 14 and up, adults aged 55–64, veterans, former foster youth, and homeless individuals. The legislation requires these groups to work, volunteer, or participate in job training for at least 80 hours per month to qualify. This expansion is expected to shift more costs to states and redistribute resources, increasing income for middle- and high-income households while reducing benefits for low-income households.

    The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) notes that people in food-insecure households spend roughly 45% more on medical care annually than those in food-secure households. SNAP participation has been linked to improved health outcomes and reduced healthcare costs. For instance, early access to SNAP among pregnant mothers and in early childhood improved birth outcomes and long-term health as adults. Elderly SNAP participants are less likely than similar non-participants to forgo their full prescribed dosage of medicine due to cost.

    The reduction or loss of SNAP benefits can lead to increased food insecurity and poorer health outcomes. A study published in Health Affairs found that the loss of SNAP benefits was associated with food insecurity and poor health in working families with young children. The study indicated that reduced benefits were associated with greater odds of fair or poor caregiver and child health.

    As the affordability gap widens and access to essential resources becomes more challenging, the combination of rising costs and reduced support systems underscores the growing inequality faced by working-class families and communities in need.

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  • Survey Explores How Colleges Rate Their Value Versus Cost

    Survey Explores How Colleges Rate Their Value Versus Cost

    Growing public skepticism in higher education has fueled a number of polls and surveys aimed at understanding how families, students and taxpayers perceive the value of a college degree.

    For instance, a majority of Americans believe at least one type of postsecondary credential holds value, according to a 2025 study by Gallup, and most parents want their kids to attend college. But few of those studies have looked at how colleges and universities see themselves improving students’ lives.

    A new survey by Tyton Partners released Thursday found three in four college stakeholders strongly believe their institution’s education is worth the cost of tuition. However, two-year institutions were more likely to say this is true, compared to private universities.

    Only 28 percent of administrators and support staff working at private four-year institutions strongly agree that their institution’s education is worth the cost, compared to 68 percent of community colleges. The survey, fielded in late June and early July, includes responses from more than 1,600 stakeholders at 825 institutions.

    The sector breakdown wasn’t a surprise to Catherine Shaw, Tyton’s managing director, in part because of how the vocational missions of two-year colleges to prepare the local workforce compare to four-year private institutions that focus more on holistic student development.

    “That part of it was so squarely within the value proposition of the reasons we have two-year degrees,” Shaw said.

    For students, there’s a direct relationship between those who say their college is worth the cost and those who think the college prepares students well for jobs and careers. Among the 792 student respondents who do believe their college is worth the cost, 95 percent believe college is preparing them well for jobs and careers. Inversely, fewer than half (48 percent) of students who don’t see the value of their degree believe college is preparing them well for a career.

    “In short, perceptions of value hinge on whether institutions effectively prepare students for the workforce,” the report states. This was true regardless of an institution’s sector, size, selectivity or demographic makeup.

    This was the first time Tyton’s survey has asked respondents about perceived value, which Shaw said was in part because of larger national studies gauging perceived value among individuals in the U.S.

    “It was interesting that there wasn’t the institutional perspective captured at scale [in previous surveys],” Shaw said. “We wanted to contextualize [the conversation] and see if our institutional stakeholders and our students are asking themselves the same questions and how they feel relevant, because they’ve got skin in the game.”

    What Creates Value

    More than a quarter of all institutions pointed to career readiness as a top college outcome beyond earning a credential, but two-year colleges were most likely to say this was the top outcome (37 percent). In comparison, the most popular outcome among four-year public and private institutions was critical thinking skills (41 percent and 36 percent, respectively).

    Faculty members were most likely to say critical thinking skills were a top college outcome, which Shaw said makes sense given their role in higher education. Administrators and advisers were more likely to point to career readiness as a top outcome for students.

    Tyton’s survey also asked administrators, support staff and faculty members which support services improve students’ value of education. Academic and career advising rose to the top, with over half of respondents in all roles ranking these services higher than tutoring, financial aid counseling or mental health counseling.

    How institutions deliver high-impact career preparation varied based on institution type. Thirty-eight percent of community colleges said apprenticeships were the most meaningful measures to improve student employment metrics, followed by career pathways at 35 percent.

    In comparison, embedded career exploration ranked highest among four-year institutions (54 percent of public universities, 50 percent of private) as did guaranteed internships for all students (31 percent of four-year public institutions) and experiential learning coursework (33 percent of four-year privates).

    Student awareness of these opportunities is the greatest barrier to career readiness, according to career services professionals (45 percent), followed by limited capacity (17 percent) and a lack of consistent programming throughout the year (13 percent). Fewer than half of surveyed students (42 percent) said they were aware of career services available to them.

    “This focus is especially timely as institutions prepare for increased scrutiny under new federal measures, such as the earnings accountability test,” the report states. “Programs that do not result in gainful employment risk losing eligibility for federal aid. Embedding career readiness across offerings isn’t just about boosting ROI: It’s fast becoming essential for institutional viability.”

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  • Students Increasingly Rely on Chatbots, but at What Cost? – The 74

    Students Increasingly Rely on Chatbots, but at What Cost? – The 74


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    Students don’t have the same incentives to talk to their professors — or even their classmates — anymore. Chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude have given them a new path to self-sufficiency. Instead of asking a professor for help on a paper topic, students can go to a chatbot. Instead of forming a study group, students can ask AI for help. These chatbots give them quick responses, on their own timeline.

    For students juggling school, work and family responsibilities, that ease can seem like a lifesaver. And maybe turning to a chatbot for homework help here and there isn’t such a big deal in isolation. But every time a student decides to ask a question of a chatbot instead of a professor or peer or tutor, that’s one fewer opportunity to build or strengthen a relationship, and the human connections students make on campus are among the most important benefits of college.

    Julia Freeland-Fisher studies how technology can help or hinder student success at the Clayton Christensen Institute. She said the consequences of turning to chatbots for help can compound.

    “Over time, that means students have fewer and fewer people in their corner who can help them in other moments of struggle, who can help them in ways a bot might not be capable of,” she said.

    As colleges further embed ChatGPT and other chatbots into campus life, Freeland-Fisher warns lost relationships may become a devastating unintended consequence.

    Asking for help

    Christian Alba said he has never turned in an AI-written assignment. Alba, 20, attends College of the Canyons, a large community college north of Los Angeles, where he is studying business and history. And while he hasn’t asked ChatGPT to write any papers for him, he has turned to the technology when a blank page and a blinking cursor seemed overwhelming. He has asked for an outline. He has asked for ideas to get him started on an introduction. He has asked for advice about what to prioritize first.

    “It’s kind of hard to just start something fresh off your mind,” Alba said. “I won’t lie. It’s a helpful tool.” Alba has wondered, though, whether turning to ChatGPT with these sorts of questions represents an overreliance on AI. But Alba, like many others in higher education, worries primarily about AI use as it relates to academic integrity, not social capital. And that’s a problem.

    Jean Rhodes, a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, has spent decades studying the way college students seek help on campus and how the relationships formed during those interactions end up benefitting the students long-term. Rhodes doesn’t begrudge students integrating chatbots into their workflows, as many of their professors have, but she worries that students will get inferior answers to even simple-sounding questions, like, “how do I change my major?”

    A chatbot might point a student to the registrar’s office, Rhodes said, but had a student asked the question of an advisor, that person may have asked important follow-up questions — why the student wants the change, for example, which could lead to a deeper conversation about a student’s goals and roadblocks.

    “We understand the broader context of students’ lives,” Rhodes said. “They’re smart but they’re not wise, these tools.”

    Rhodes and one of her former doctoral students, Sarah Schwartz, created a program called Connected Scholars to help students understand why it’s valuable to talk to professors and have mentors. The program helped them hone their networking skills and understand what people get out of their networks over the course of their lives — namely, social capital.

    Connected Scholars is offered as a semester-long course at U Mass Boston, and a forthcoming paper examines outcomes over the last decade, finding students who take the course are three times more likely to graduate. Over time, Rhodes and her colleagues discovered that the key to the program’s success is getting students past an aversion to asking others for help.

    Students will make a plethora of excuses to avoid asking for help, Rhodes said, ticking off a list of them: “‘I don’t want to stand out,’ ‘I don’t want people to realize I don’t fit in here,’ ‘My culture values independence,’ ‘I shouldn’t reach out,’ ‘I’ll get anxious,’ ‘This person won’t respond.’ If you can get past that and get them to recognize the value of reaching out, it’s pretty amazing what happens.”

    Connections are key

    Seeking human help doesn’t only leave students with the resolution to a single problem, it gives them a connection to another person. And that person, down the line could become a friend, a mentor or a business partner — a “strong tie,” as social scientists describe their centrality to a person’s network. They could also become a “weak tie” who a student may not see often, but could, importantly, still offer a job lead or crucial social support one day.

    Daniel Chambliss, a retired sociologist from Hamilton College, emphasized the value of relationships in his 2014 book, “How College Works,” co-authored with Christopher Takacs. Over the course of their research, the pair found that the key to a successful college experience boiled down to relationships, specifically two or three close friends and one or two trusted adults. Hamilton College goes out of its way to make sure students can form those relationships, structuring work-study to get students into campus offices and around faculty and staff, making room for students of varying athletic abilities on sports teams, and more.

    Chambliss worries that AI-driven chatbots make it too easy to avoid interactions that can lead to important relationships. “We’re suffering epidemic levels of loneliness in America,” he said. “It’s a really major problem, historically speaking. It’s very unusual, and it’s profoundly bad for people.”

    As students increasingly turn to artificial intelligence for help and even casual conversation, Chambliss predicted it will make people even more isolated: “It’s one more place where they won’t have a personal relationship.”

    In fact, a recent study by researchers at the MIT Media Lab and OpenAI found that the most frequent users of ChatGPT — power users — were more likely to be lonely and isolated from human interaction.

    “What scares me about that is that Big Tech would like all of us to be power users,” said Freeland-Fisher. “That’s in the fabric of the business model of a technology company.”

    Yesenia Pacheco is preparing to re-enroll in Long Beach City College for her final semester after more than a year off. Last time she was on campus, ChatGPT existed, but it wasn’t widely used. Now she knows she’s returning to a college where ChatGPT is deeply embedded in students’ as well as faculty and staff’s lives, but Pacheco expects she’ll go back to her old habits — going to her professors’ office hours and sticking around after class to ask them questions. She sees the value.

    She understands why others might not. Today’s high schoolers, she has noticed, are not used to talking to adults or building mentor-style relationships. At 24, she knows why they matter.

    “A chatbot,” she said, “isn’t going to give you a letter of recommendation.”

    This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.


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