The Growing Gap: Public Higher Education's Declining Affordability for Low-Income Students

There is, and has been, a tension in higher education between the public’s understanding of the benefits (financial and otherwise) of postsecondary attainment and their lack of ability to afford it. Headlines and news reports often focus on the high cost of tuition and large amounts of aggregate student debt, which add to students’ concerns about paying for higher education.

A new National College Access Network analysis shows that students are right to be concerned: Affordability is decreasing at two- and four-year public institutions, whose mission is to provide a postsecondary pathway to benefit individuals and the public at large. In 2016-17, just 48% of community colleges in our sample were affordable for the average Pell Grant recipient, according to NCAN’s affordability formula. Only 27% of four-year public institutions were affordable.