All Penn AHEAD Papers
Document Type
Working Paper
Date of this Version
3-27-2019
Theme
Access and Completion in Higher Education
Keywords
college costs, financial aid, public policy, descriptive analyses
Copyright/Permission Statement
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Abstract
This study uses web sphere analysis to examine the usability and usefulness of information that selected four-year colleges and universities are providing about the costs of attendance via their Net Price Calculators (NPCs) and cost-related websites. The analyses show that some colleges and universities are not only failing to comply with federal NPC mandates but also ignoring their ethical responsibility, as noted by the National Association of College Admission Counseling, “to provide complete, factual, and readily accessible information that will allow students and their counselors to make informed college comparisons and choices.”
Funder Acknowledgment
This research was supported by a grant from Lumina Foundation. Findings and opinions are those of the authors and may not reflect the views of the funder.
Recommended Citation
Perna, L. W., Wright-Kim, J., & Jiang, N. (2019). Questioning the Calculations: Are Colleges Complying with Federal and Ethical Mandates for Providing Students with Estimated Costs? (Penn AHEAD Research Brief – March 2019). Philadelphia, PA: The Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (PennAHEAD), University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.
Date Posted: 27 March 2019
Comments
This brief draws from a research paper that was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Tampa, Florida, November 16, 2018. The full research paper is in the final stages of review at Educational Policy. The authors are grateful to Jillian Johnston and Dorothy Villareal for the assistance they provided with a first round of data collection.