Congressional Testimony
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Southwestern College Associate VP Hicks Testifies Before Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee released the following testimony by Brenda Hicks, associate vice president for student financial planning and director of financial aid at Southwestern College, from a Nov. 6, 2025, hearing entitled "Reforming Financial Transparency in Higher Education":* * *
Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, and distinguished members of the Committee:
Thank you for the honor and opportunity to provide testimony for the committee's hearing on Financial Transparency in Higher Education. I am Brenda Hicks, Associate Vice ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee released the following testimony by Brenda Hicks, associate vice president for student financial planning and director of financial aid at Southwestern College, from a Nov. 6, 2025, hearing entitled "Reforming Financial Transparency in Higher Education": * * * Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, and distinguished members of the Committee: Thank you for the honor and opportunity to provide testimony for the committee's hearing on Financial Transparency in Higher Education. I am Brenda Hicks, Associate VicePresident for Student Financial Planning and Director of Financial Aid at Southwestern College in Kansas.
Southwestern College is a small, private, Christian liberal arts college located in Winfield, Kansas. Besides being the hometown of the character Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island, it is a rural, farming community and the county seat of Cowley County. Our student body consists of approximately 1,000 students, comprising both a residential campus and an online, military serving program. Most colleges the size of Southwestern draw their residential population from a small radius around their campuses. Because Winfield is located in the south-central part of the state, a large portion of our student body comes from an area characterized by small towns, tribal lands, farms, and natural prairie.
According to DataUSA (https://datausa.io), approximately 16% of Cowley County's population holds a bachelor's degree, and 13.9% of the population lives below the poverty line. Just to the south in Kay County, Oklahoma, 13.2% of the population holds a bachelor's degree, and 15.5% live below the poverty line. This compares to 22.2% of Americans (data from the Education Data Initiative, https://educationdata.org) who hold a bachelor's degree and 12.4% of Americans who live below the poverty line. As a financial aid administrator serving this area, one of my primary goals is to make the price of attending college transparent and clear.
Over the past thirty years of working with families as they complete the financial aid process, one thing is apparent. What families want is an estimate of the bill they can expect to receive in August. Like most small, private Christian colleges in Kansas, most of our students reside in college-sponsored housing and eat at the college cafeteria on a meal plan. All charges associated with living on campus are passed through to the student account and paid in one place.
To meet families' need for a clear estimate of total costs, Southwestern sends an estimate - created in the early 1990s and refined over the years - that provides exactly what families are looking for: direct charges billed by the institution. These include tuition, a double room in our freshman residence hall, our most expensive meal plan (17 meals per week), and our regular fees (activity fee, laundry fee, technology fee, and room deposit). The estimate also reminds families that books must be purchased separately and that some courses may incur additional fees, such as lab fees or private music lessons, which range from $25 - $250. This year, we are adding athletic fees and insurance costs, which now total approximately $1,600 per student-athlete.
The estimate then lists the offer of federal, state, and institutional grants and scholarships, as well as an estimate of federal student loan eligibility. At the bottom, it shows the amount due to the institution if the student accepts the entire package (including loans) and outlines available payment options. We begin sending estimates with the receipt of the first FAFSAs in October and, whenever possible, follow up with a conversation - either in person or by phone - to explain the estimate and discuss costs with families. Last year, we delivered 632 estimates to achieve an incoming class of 245 students.
For consistency and clarity, we do our best to ensure that the aid offer students receive in February matches the estimate sent to the family in October. Most of the time, it does.
When it doesn't, it's usually because of FAFSA issues that are cleared up through additional required processes that need to be resolved with the student and family. In the rare instances when that happens, we personally reach out to the family, explain what happened, and discuss why the aid offer is changing from the estimate they received.
For the longest time, we did not list the full cost of attendance on the offer because we wanted it to look as much like the estimate as possible. Listing our full cost of attendance adds another $8,800 in indirect costs that Southwestern College will never charge the student, but that could potentially be incurred by individuals attending. As a reminder, the full cost of attendance includes four primary differences from costs that are considered direct, billable costs.
1. Transportation Costs. This item is intended to represent an allowance for travel and the cost of maintenance to a vehicle for trips between a student's home and the campus. As a college located in a town with minimal public transportation, we include this allowance because most of our students come to campus using their own vehicles.
2. Miscellaneous Personal Expenses. This estimated budget item is intended to cover costs for cell phone plans, clothing, personal supplies and hygiene, modest costs for entertainment, and any health insurance or medical needs. We have a financial aid team of four people, including me. We don't have the time to conduct primary research to make these costs as accurate as possible. Instead, we exercise our right to use secondary research on cost-of-living expenses produced by the College Board. We feel the numbers are adequately representative of costs in the area.
Together, these two items - transportation and miscellaneous expenses - add a little over $8,000 to the costs that are considered billable by the college.
3. The Department of Education requires that the housing budget be the average or median assessed to all residents of college-owned housing. We offer a variety of housing options at Southwestern, including private rooms and apartment-style living. Our upperclassmen often choose those options. The difference between the standard, budget-friendly housing and the cost we must include in the official cost of attendance is right at $400 per year.
4. Finally, the Department of Education also requires that we ensure a meal allowance that covers three meals per day for a full week. Using the USDA food plans as a basis, we have determined that we must add $400 to our 17-meal plan cost to ensure all 21 meals are represented in the food allowance.
Again, in the past, we chose not to include transportation and miscellaneous personal expenses in the aid offer because we didn't need to instruct families to budget those in.
Families understand they need to provide transportation. They know they might need to purchase a microwave and a mini fridge for the residence hall room. They know they need to provide appropriate clothing and a medical kit. What they are looking for is what they will pay the college directly.
We publish information about the full cost of attendance on our website for those who are curious, linking it to the aid offer. In 2011, when the Net Price Calculator became required, we added the calculator provided by the Department of Education to our website. At first, we were excited about the potential labor savings the calculator would provide by enabling families to estimate the cost on their own. After realizing the calculator used the full cost of attendance and a significantly simplified presentation of scholarship information, we determined it didn't work for us as a tool for presenting the cost effectively. We kept the calculator because it was required, and continued our efforts to send customized estimates.
The estimated bill is one of a suite of methods we use to be clear and transparent about costs to our families. In addition to the estimated bill, we keep fees to a minimum to make our published costs as simple to understand as possible. Our summer orientation events provide opportunities for in-person counseling to discuss the estimate and ensure families understand their out-of-pocket cost and payment options. We are aware that our students and families often make financial sacrifices to attend, and most decide to borrow student loans. If students don't understand how much Southwestern College costs, they are less likely to persist and graduate. We want them to persist and graduate.
We do not, however, operate in a vacuum. Aware of the increasing scrutiny surrounding aid offer transparency, we followed the discussion that led to the creation of the College Cost Transparency Initiative (CCT). I was on the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) board during the commissioning and publication of NASFAA's Report "No Clear Winner: Consumer Testing of Financial Aid Award Letters - Summary & Report" (2/11/2013). (No Clear Winner: Consumer Testing of Financial Aid Award Letters Summary & Report) Following the Department of Education's guidance GEN-21-70 posted on October 28, 2021, we updated our financial aid offer to conform to the suggestions outlined in the announcement. After the creation of the College Cost and Transparency Initiative, we updated our offer again to comply with the CCT principles, standards, and definitions. (https://www.collegeprice.org/samples)
Did price transparency and clear communication improve by adding the full cost of attendance and the additional $8,800 in indirect charges? Unfortunately, for our students, the short answer is no. A more positive view of the situation could be that the changes have led to a marked increase in communication surrounding the cost of attendance.
Since we made the changes, confusion surrounding the aid offer has increased. When the financial aid offers are sent for the first time, our admissions team, coaches, student success team, and advisors are aware that, for the next couple of weeks, we will all be inundated with calls from families asking why the charge (their word) suddenly increased by $8,000. Returning students enter our office in tears, indicating that after receiving the costs outlined in our aid offer, their parents informed them they may have to drop out. Our off-campus students call us upset and confused, accusing us of charging them for housing. I'm thankful for the calls and the visits. These interactions give us an opportunity to clear the air, educate, and help students understand what they are seeing. I worry about the students who see the numbers and disconnect from the conversation.
The full cost of attendance includes both direct and indirect costs of college. Both are necessary for financial aid purposes. The challenge colleges face is attempting to separate the two in ways their population will easily identify and understand. I've described which expenses Southwestern College considers direct and indirect for our residential students.
Different students at different campuses will be interested in different numbers.
Institutions need some flexibility to focus on the numbers that are the most meaningful for their student populations.
Did we anticipate the confusion created because of altering our financial aid offers to meet the new standards? Yes. To minimize calls, we created 2-minute videos that explain the concept of cost of attendance, net price, and satisfactory progress. We created an online portal to post the aid offer, along with videos and links to further information, stating plainly, in several places, that the aid offer is not equivalent to a bill. We cover the topic of cost of attendance versus the bill in our orientation moments with parents. This year, we are adding another 2-minute video to our website, providing an overview of the aid offer for families to watch prior to receiving it.
Does the confusion remain? Yes. It is getting better as we remedy the pain points. Our aid offer is a constant work in progress. We approach compliance with an eye toward achieving Congress's intentions while serving and meeting the needs of the students we know and love.
Do we believe clearly communicating the cost of college is important to the process of selecting and attending college? Absolutely.
Do we believe the United States federal government can create a uniform aid offer or net price calculator that will solve all our problems? Respectfully, no.
Solutions:
1. Allow institutions the flexibility to customize their aid offers for specific student populations.
Despite the confusion the team at Southwestern College has fielded from students and families, I support the guidelines outlined in GEN-21-70 and espoused by the College Cost Transparency Initiative. (https://www.collegeprice.org/standards) If Congress would like to intervene in this area, doing so at the level of required contents and definitions is the best way to achieve industry-wide consistency. Students shouldn't have to figure out that a 'sub loan' at one school is the same as a 'DL Sub' at another school, and they should absolutely know that both of those things describe a loan. Students shouldn't have to look beyond the aid offer to see what the college estimates their travel expenses might be for attending.
Allowing colleges to communicate those elements in ways that make sense for each of their unique populations is equally important to achieving clear communication.
We have, for example, seven versions of our financial aid offer. All seven contain the required content and definitions from the existing guidance, as well as the CCT principles and standards. The messaging surrounding those contents, however, is customized to the audience receiving the offer. Two versions are for incoming students - one for on-campus residents and another for students living off campus. Two are for returning students - again, one version for on-campus residents and one version for off-campus residents. A fifth version of our aid offer is for our graduate students attending our residential campus who have typically transitioned from our residential undergraduate program. A sixth version of the aid offer is sent to our online graduate and undergraduate students who are working adults and attending part-time. And finally, a seventh version of our aid offer is sent to our military population who also attend online.
I do not support a uniform aid offer that leaves little room for campus customization. We already have this in the form of the College Financing Plan (CFP), and schools that believe this will work for their students already use it for their aid offers. A working adult student is vastly different from an 18-year-old attending college for the first time. A first-time student is vastly different from a 22-year-old senior who has been around the block and is getting ready to graduate. One of my favorite guiding quotes is from author Stephen Covey, who said, "You can be efficient with things, but you can only be effective with people." Being effective is messy. Being effective means saying the same thing in 50 different ways to meet the needs of the person you are speaking with. A uniform financial aid offer may be efficient, but it won't be effective.
2. Improve the Net Price Calculator to provide a more accurate net cost calculation.
I agree with the committee that the Net Price Calculator (NPC) is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't go far enough. I am intrigued by a calculator that would be tied to the College Scorecard site and entirely managed by the Department of Education. But the calculator must be improved. The best part of the NPC is that it requires very little information to create an estimate of a family's Student Aid Index (SAI) and eligibility for federal aid. The way college costs and financial aid packages are presented must improve.
The reason colleges opt for calculators that exceed the minimum requirements is that the minimum requirements often create confusion. Worse, the minimum requirements cause students to eliminate a college from consideration even before the college has a chance to have a deeper conversation about cost. Why? Because families see the net price and believe they are looking at what the college will charge them to attend (i.e., the bill).
Families do not understand the concept of net price. When they hear the words 'cost of attendance,' they hear 'the charges that will appear on my bill.' When they see a net price, they believe it is the amount they will pay in addition to the cost of equipping their child with clothes, a means of transportation, and personal items for their residence hall. After we have properly educated families about what COA is and is not, the relief is visible. Once our families realize the amount the school will charge them is much less than the net price, they relax. Our net price calculator is slightly better than the federal NPC, but it's still not perfect. We have found that the estimates we provide paint a more accurate picture of what it will cost to attend our institution.
How could the federal NPC improve? Allow families to toggle direct and indirect cost items on and off, enabling them to customize their results and more closely approximate an actual bill. Collect more nuanced data from colleges for a broader range of scholarship options based on merit (GPA/ACT/SAT) categories, as well as income bands. Separate state financial aid from the average scholarship totals so that it can be added to the results of students from the home state. And if the data collected is old, which it will likely be if this is to be created by the federal government from existing data, please indicate the year the data represents to reduce confusion.
3. Rethink the way program data is presented on the College Scorecard.
The College Scorecard website presents the information it collects in a digestible format that is visually interesting. The site feels very much like a work in progress that has the potential to be a helpful tool. The scorecard achieves its goal of providing an objective set of data that enables users to compare institutions they are considering. I once read that homebuyers should fall in love with a prospective home purchase on their first visit and then return on another day to flush all the toilets, check for squeaky floorboards, and closely inspect the foundation. The scorecard appears to be designed to achieve the second part of the home-buying process. But it still needs work.
The program information as currently presented in the College Scorecard is incomplete.
Because it is incomplete, it has the potential to frustrate students, student advocates, and colleges alike, ultimately undermining the tool's usefulness. Just for fun, I used the scorecard to search for fields of study. I selected "English Language and Literature, General" and "Bachelor's Degree" and clicked to search for colleges "Near Me." Three colleges appeared. Two had no data available. Of greater concern, none of the colleges listed was Southwestern College, which does offer a Bachelor of Arts in English and is very literally 'near me.' Students who will be using this feature will expect the search tool to return all colleges with the programs they have selected.
Schools will be more willing to support the tool if their programs appear in a search when they should. I'm assuming the field of study area of the scorecard is using data collected from the financial value transparency reports to build its database. It also appears to be using Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) codes from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to build the list of programs.
1. First, I would suggest simplifying the list of programs to a consumer-tested list and grouping the CIP codes around commonly accepted and tested titles. Is there a need, for example, to have "English Language and Literature, General" and "English Language and Literature/Letters, Other" listed separately?
2. Second, I would suggest listing all programs provided by an institution on the tool instead of just those that are required to be included in the financial value transparency report. The purpose of that report and the purpose of the scorecard are two different things. To be clear, I'm not proposing that schools be required to report on all programs, regardless of their size. I am proposing that the scorecard list all programs provided by the school and, if available, include the financial transparency data for those programs.
Finally, I believe there is an important conversation to be had regarding the idea of measuring the quality of a school by the economic return produced by the individual upon graduation. Framing the conversation solely in terms of program value is distracting us from the real issue. Taxpayers are concerned that students who borrow loans for college are taking on debt beyond their ability to repay. That is a valid concern. While growing up on a farm, I learned the importance of thrift and budgeting from a very early age. In college, I chose to study what I loved. This decision caused my parents to become extremely concerned. They worried that I would spend all this money and time and never get a good job. I hold a Bachelor of Arts in English with a creative writing emphasis. Dad gave me four heifers to manage from his Angus herd so I would have a small, annual income. I got a job on campus to earn money for living expenses. And I borrowed loans to pay the rest. I graduated, got a job, wasn't paid a lot, but lived simply, worked hard, and repaid the loans before I was 30. At no time during all of that did I worry about the fact that my English degree didn't immediately lead to a great salary. Let's face it, I work at a small, private Christian college in the financial aid department. I still don't have a fantastic salary. A fabulous salary is not why I'm here. Money is not my primary motivation. I'm comfortable, and I'm content. I use my money wisely, and I live within my means.
My point is that a hard-working student who is properly educated about borrowing can learn and thrive in any program offered by a properly accredited institution. An uninformed student who is uneducated about borrowing will face challenges even if they are engaged in a fabulous program. A properly accredited degree is as valuable as the person doing the learning and the borrowing. Which brings us to the final area being considered:
4. Provide a simple calculator that helps students determine how much they should cap their borrowing based on their vocational choice before it's time to repay.
Informed borrowing is an excellent policy goal. When individuals borrow a mortgage, they visit a banker with their tax returns and W-2s, and the banker gives them the amount of home they can afford. When people plan for retirement, there are tools to help them determine when they can retire based on their accumulated savings. Borrowing for a college degree is an investment (and a bit of a gamble) in future earnings. Where is the calculator that will help an individual determine the limit they should borrow based on their vocational plans? The Loan Simulator on the www.studentaid.gov website is amazing. It is not meaningful to students until they are ready to repay loans they have already borrowed.
When students contemplate changing majors or come into the office worried about the amount of debt they are accumulating, we sit with them and help them calculate their borrowing capacity. We look at their accumulated debt, their vocational choice, and help them decide if they are on track to afford repayment or if they need to cut back and work more hours while they are in school to earn as they go. In short, we teach them how to borrow responsibly and provide them with a vision for managing their money in the future.
A simplified calculator could be created from the existing Loan Simulator, or by using Department of Labor (DOL) data about average entering salaries per vocational choice.
The math is simple. The information the calculation provides, and the visible confidence the student gains as they learn to take control over what they are doing, is priceless.
Seventy percent of residential campus students at Southwestern College borrow loans to attend. We are a private, non-profit college and don't receive state taxpayer support beyond some state-funded scholarship programs and tax relief as a non-profit organization. This year, we are providing $15.7 million in institutional financial aid to help as much as we can. Borrowing student loans helps bridge the gap between the amount that scholarships and grants cover and the amount that families must pay up front.
Borrowing to attend is a personal choice. People who borrow to attend do so because they value the education they are receiving.
In the words of one of our student workers, Isaiah Yehudah, "Attending Southwestern College was one of the better decisions that I have made. I had an option to go to a bigger university, but some learning environments aren't for everyone. With this type of college, I can have a more personal connection with my professors. At Southwestern, the professors actually know who you are and have a good understanding of your strengths. They know how they can personally assist you if you need help understanding anything."
This is why Isaiah is borrowing. Isaiah is an engaged learner. Isaiah is an informed borrower. Isaiah will have no difficulty thriving and repaying his student loans regardless of his degree.
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Conclusion
Ultimately, this conversation is about helping students and their families make more informed choices when they decide to attend and borrow for a college education.
Financial aid administrators play a critical role in the process. Part of the mission of Southwestern College is to live and teach a sustainable way of life. The Southwestern College financial aid team's mission is to serve students and families with integrity through the financial aid process, educating them according to their individual financial literacy needs. Our primary customer service goal is to achieve personalized and timely service to students as they complete the financial aid process and to increase their awareness of financial literacy. Assisting students in discovering and calculating the cost of attending Southwestern College, as well as helping them understand how well their choices mesh with their vocational plans, is something we think about nearly every team meeting. I am honored to be asked to share my perspective on this topic with you. Thank you again for including a member of the financial aid profession as you consider policy solutions to better support students and families.
Thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
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Original text here: https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/153d5827-eb01-6c45-a5a4-23daa9a2971b/Hicks%20Testimony.pdf
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Crapo Issues Remarks at Executive Session on Social Security, USTR, HHS Nominations
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, released the following remarks from a Nov. 19, 2025, executive session to consider the nominations of Arjun Mody to be deputy commissioner of Social Security, Jeffrey Goettman to be deputy U.S. Trade Representative, Julie Callahan to be USTR chief agricultural negotiator, and Thomas Bell to be Health and Human Services inspector general:* * *
"We meet today to consider favorably reporting the nominations of Arjun Mody, who is nominated to serve as the Deputy Commissioner for the Social Security Administration ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, released the following remarks from a Nov. 19, 2025, executive session to consider the nominations of Arjun Mody to be deputy commissioner of Social Security, Jeffrey Goettman to be deputy U.S. Trade Representative, Julie Callahan to be USTR chief agricultural negotiator, and Thomas Bell to be Health and Human Services inspector general: * * * "We meet today to consider favorably reporting the nominations of Arjun Mody, who is nominated to serve as the Deputy Commissioner for the Social Security Administration(SSA), Jeffrey Goettman, who is nominated to serve as the Deputy United States Trade Representative (USTR), Julie Callahan, who is nominated to serve as Chief Agricultural Negotiator at USTR and March Bell, who is nominated to serve as the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
"This morning's meeting will provide members with the opportunity to offer remarks on the nominees. We will notify members of a time and location later today to conduct the vote off the Senate floor.
"Each of the nominees proved themselves to be well qualified at their hearing.
"Mr. Mody highlighted his extensive experience working with congressional leaders to build consensus and find solutions to challenging policy issues. He will bring the same work ethic and collaborative approach to the Social Security Administration.
"Mr. Goettman demonstrated his commitment to ensuring the resiliency of U.S. manufacturing supply chains, particularly for small businesses. I look forward to working with him, if confirmed, to ensure the formulation of trade policy that is both fair and economically sound.
"Dr. Callahan brings decades of expertise to USTR, as reflected by the over 80 trade associations supporting her nomination. If confirmed as Chief Agriculture Negotiator, she will ensure the important interests of American agriculture are championed on the world stage.
"Lastly, Mr. Bell will utilize his extensive oversight experience if he is confirmed as Inspector General to fight waste, fraud and abuse, and to keep Congress abreast of the HHS's steps to save taxpayer dollars.
"I will be voting in favor of each nominee and encourage my colleagues to do the same.
"I now recognize Ranking Member Wyden for his remarks."
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Original text here: https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/11192025_crapo_executive_session_statement.pdf
Hope Center for Student Basic Needs Director Huelsman Testifies Before Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee released the following written testimony by Mark Huelsman, director of policy and advocacy at the Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University, from a Nov. 6, 2025, hearing entitled "Reforming Financial Transparency in Higher Education":* * *
Good morning, Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, and Members of the Committee. My name is Mark Huelsman, and I am the Director of Policy & Advocacy at The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University ("The Hope Center"). We are a national research ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee released the following written testimony by Mark Huelsman, director of policy and advocacy at the Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University, from a Nov. 6, 2025, hearing entitled "Reforming Financial Transparency in Higher Education": * * * Good morning, Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, and Members of the Committee. My name is Mark Huelsman, and I am the Director of Policy & Advocacy at The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University ("The Hope Center"). We are a national researchand policy center working to improve student success and well-being by addressing students' basic needs. I also serve as a Fellow with Protect Borrowers, a national non-profit fighting to build an economy where debt doesn't limit opportunity.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the ways we can ensure financial transparency and value in higher education. I look forward to discussing ways that we can ensure that students and families are aware of the total cost of their degree or credential and can access all resources they qualify for to finance their education. The Hope Center was pleased to respond to Chairman Cassidy's recent Request for Information on this topic1 and I want to thank Ranking Member Sanders for his years of leadership on college affordability. I will offer further legislative recommendations in both areas today.
I would like to begin this testimony with one of my favorite passages about the topic at hand today, spoken over 55 years ago:
"No qualified student who wants to go to college should be barred by lack of money. That has long been a great American goal; I propose that we achieve it now... No element of our national life is more worthy of our attention, our support and our concern than higher education. For no element has greater impact on the careers, the personal growth and the happiness of so many of our citizens. And no element is of greater importance in providing the knowledge and leadership on which the vitality of our democracy and the strength of our economy depends." This call to action came from none other than President Richard Nixon, in a statement to this body in 1970,2 proposing many of the elements that make up our modern federal financial aid system, a system whose intent is to help students understand and ultimately afford the cost of college.
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1 The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs (2025, October 24). Response to Request for Information on Increasing College Cost and Value Transparency for Students and Families. https://hope.temple.edu/sites/hope/files/media/document/Response%20to%20RFI%20on%20Price%20Tr ansparency%20HELP%20Committee%20-%20The%20Hope%20Center.pdf
2 Nixon, R. M. (1970, March 20). Text of Nixon message to Congress proposing Higher Education Opportunity Act. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1970/03/20/archives/text-of-nixon-message-to-congress-proposing-higher-education.html
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Yet today, five decades on, millions of families struggle with higher education costs that are neither transparent nor remotely affordable. Across the country, students face extreme difficulty paying for both the direct costs of their degree program, such as tuition and fees, and non-tuition (or indirect) costs, which are often much larger, unpredictable, and difficult to decipher. It is encouraging to see the Committee looking further into how to make college costs much easier to navigate.
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Today's College Students are Struggling
Our survey data from The Hope Center shows that 3-in-5 students in higher education struggle to meet basic needs such as food and housing while enrolled in their degree program, while millions more struggle with costs related to child care, health care, transportation, technology, and more.3 We cannot expect students to succeed in their studies if they do not have sufficient food in their stomachs, roofs over their head, or reliable internet service to do their coursework. Yet this is exactly what we ask of millions of students across the country every day.
It can be easy to get lost in the headlines, or to be confused given the areas where this Administration has dedicated its focus, but the typical student in American higher education today does not attend college full-time, right out of high school, with parental support to live on a selective campus hours away from home. Rather, the typical experience is the opposite of that misconception in almost every way: the average student attends a nearby public campus, commutes to school, and is someone for whom one unexpected cost can be the difference in achieving their personal or career dreams or dropping out.
Three out of every four students attend public colleges,4 including four-in-10 who go to community college.5 Half of all students seeking an associate degree or certificate are 24 or older,6 and the vast majority of students in all sectors work--including 40% who work full-time.7 One out of every five takes care of a dependent child.8 The vast majority have unmet financial need that is not covered by grants,9 resulting in most students borrowing for a degree and finding themselves at the mercy of a confusing and often-predatory student loan system.10 Most students do not live on campus, meaning they face the same rent increases that everyone else must contend with each month.
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3 The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs (2025), 2023-2024 Student Basic Needs Survey Report, https://hope.temple.edu/research/hope-center-basic-needs-survey/2023-2024-student-basic-needs-survey-report
4 National Center for Education Statistics (2023), The Condition of Education: Undergraduate Enrollment, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cha
5 Community College Research Center (2025), Community College FAQs, Columbia University, https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/community-college-faqs.html
6 Calculations from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey (NPSAS:20). Retrieval code: hwbafq
7 Lumina Foundation (2025), Today's Students: Working Adults, https://www.luminafoundation.org/topics/todays-students/working-adults/
8 Anderson, T. et al (2024, September), Who Are Undergraduates with Dependent Children?, SPARK Collaborative, https://studentparentaction.org/resources/who-are-undergraduates-with-dependent-children-2020
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These are the students for whom the affordability crisis is most acute, and who most urgently need a more transparent system. Despite a few years of overly optimistic headlines11 celebrating the fact that college tuition did not rise faster than historically high inflation in the economy, tuition and fees are once again rising at an alarming rate.12 And as direct costs creep ever higher, students are also swept up in the middle of a cost of living crisis, in which they must find a way to budget for ever-higher food prices,13 child care prices that dwarf college tuition in 38 states,14 and health insurance premiums that are set to skyrocket in large part due to Congress's decision to allow enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire.15 Rents for student housing have grown at a faster rate than other types of multi-family housing over the past two years,16 and utility bills continue to skyrocket.17 The cost-of-living challenges students face are unpredictable, can spike unexpectedly within a single month or semester, and often intersect with one another. For example, our survey data finds that three quarters (78%) of students experiencing food insecurity also experience housing insecurity or homelessness; nearly nine in ten (89%) parenting students who have challenges accessing childcare also struggle to afford food and housing; and over half (53%) who experience food or housing insecurity also experience anxiety and/or depression.18 Meanwhile, our financial aid system is simply not sufficient to meet students' needs. The Pell Grant, our nation's cornerstone financial aid program, was designed to cover most of the college expenses for low-income students. The maximum award was the equivalent of more than 75% of the cost of attending a public four-year college in 1975./19 Yet today, it covers one-quarter, its lowest level in history,20 losing value each year to rising costs of attendance. Non-tuition costs are disproportionately responsible for the decline in the grant's purchasing power,21 and federal data finds that students who receive a Pell Grant experience food insecurity at far higher rates than non-Pell recipients.22 In other words, Pell is not meeting its goal to equalize opportunity, and restoring its promise requires lawmakers to find ways to lower the total net price facing students, not just tuition and fees.
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9 Calculations from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey (NPSAS:20). Retrieval code: xfpbrk
10 The Institute for College Access and Success (2023). Quick Facts About Student Loan Debt, https://ticas.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Quick-Facts-About-Student-Loan-Debt-2023.pdf
11 See, e.g. Perry, N. and Mumphrey, C. (2025, January 8), " College tuition has fallen significantly at many schools," AP News, https://apnews.com/article/college-tuition-cost-5e69acffa7ae11300123df028eac5321
12 Marcus, J. (2025, October 13), "After years of quietly falling, college tuition is on the rise again," Hechinger Report, https://hechingerreport.org/after-years-of-quietly-falling-college-tuition-is-on-the-rise-again/
13 Horsley, S. (2025, September 19), "Grocery prices have jumped up, and there's no relief in sight," NPR, https://www.npr.org/2025/09/19/nx-s1-5539547/grocery-prices-tariffs-food-inflation
14 Economic Policy Institute (2025), Child Care Costs in the United States, https://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/
15 Sanger-Katz, M., & Parlapiano, A. (2025, October 30). "Here's how much Obamacare prices are rising across the country." The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/30/upshot/obamacare-subsidies-new-prices.html
16 Feucht, A. (2025, February 6). The (student) housing crisis. Moody's CRE. https://www.moodyscre.com/insights/cre-trends/the-student-housing-crisis/
17 Huelsman, M. (2025, October). The looming utilities crisis facing students, and what we can do about it. The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs. https://hope.temple.edu/hope-blog/looming-utilities-crisis
18 The Hope Center (2025), supra note 3
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Working-class students also often cannot avail themselves of federal public benefit and safety net programs, which offer many families experiencing poverty, job loss, and food & housing insecurity a lifeline to get back on their feet. These programs often contain specific rules that effectively render most students in higher education ineligible due to complex, outdated rules and extreme red tape.23 For example, in order to access Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, low-income students attending college more than half-time must navigate a series of complex exemptions in order to determine and maintain their eligibility, most often qualifying by working 20 hours per week on top of a full-time course load.24 These rules fly in the face of common sense: that higher education is work, takes work, and supports work. The eligibility rules also reduce the likelihood that students will graduate or ever enroll to begin with.
Yet even students who meet eligibility criteria do not access these much-needed supports. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that while 3.3 million students in higher education are likely eligible for SNAP, only 1.1 million (33%) report receiving benefits, largely due to complex eligibility rules that surgically target students.25 By comparison, an estimated 82% of U.S. households that are eligible for SNAP report receiving benefits,26 a persistent disparity often known as the "student SNAP gap." With the Trump Administration's recent attempt to avoid using SNAP contingency funds during the government shutdown--a decision with no precedent in history27 that courts have rightly ruled against--students and colleges remain stretched increasingly thin, and in the dark about how to meet essential needs. As the current shutdown drags on, students and their families will confront even more uncertainty.
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19 Protopsaltis, S., & Parrott, S. (2017, July 27). Pell Grants--A key tool for expanding college access and economic opportunity--Need strengthening, not cuts. Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/pell-grants-a-key-tool-for-expanding-college-access-and-economic
20 College Board (2024). Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2024. https://research.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/Trends-in-College-Pricing-and-Student-Aid-2024-ADA.pdf
21 Delisle, J. (2021, August 18). What better data reveal about Pell Grants and college prices. Urban Wire, Urban Institute. https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/what-better-data-reveal-about-pell-grants-and-college-prices
22 U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2024, July 24). Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: Estimated Eligibility and Receipt among Food Insecure College Students. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-107074
23 See, e.g., Rios, L., Welton, C., & Huelsman, M. (2024, May). The State of State Choices: A national landscape analysis of postsecondary eligibility restrictions and opportunities in SNAP, CCDF, and TANF. The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University. https://hope.temple.edu/public-benefits-eligibility-students
24 Students attending higher education more than half-time currently can qualify for SNAP if they meet normal income and other eligibility criteria, in addition to meeting one of ten exemptions, which can include working 20 hours per week, being under age 18 or above age 50, receiving TANF assistance, participating in a job training program or being assigned to a SNAP Employment & Training program, participating in work-study programs, caring for a dependent child under 6, or between ages 6-11 and lacking sufficient child care, and more. For more see USDA Food and Nutrition Service, Students.
25 Government Accountability Office (2024), supra note 22.
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These are the realities facing students and families today, and it should be the backdrop for any discussion about financial transparency and value in higher education. Unfortunately, we are going backwards in terms of providing families the information they need to make informed decisions, thanks to the Trump Administration's decisions to dismantle the agencies responsible for providing students with data, resources, and basic consumer protections. Worse, several provisions within the recent One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will result in higher college prices, more limited financial aid resources, and unstable state budgets, and will force students into a private student loan market that is neither transparent nor affordable.
Above all, I urge this Committee to not simply find ways to make higher education costs clearer, but prioritize lowering the cost of attendance for students, ensuring students have the resources to meet their full cost, and ensuring that no student is barred from opportunity because their family cannot afford to pay.
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Students Need a Clear, Transparent Guarantee of Affordability
While this Committee looks at efforts to make college prices more transparent, it is important to remember that for much of our history, students had a fairly clear pathway toward financing a degree. The net price of public higher education could be managed through a part-time job and modest grant aid, in addition to generous federal benefits like the GI Bill, with student debt as a relative afterthought.
Yet because there is no federal check on how states choose to fund their higher education systems, state appropriations have been unstable--bottoming out during recessions and slowdowns, and rising slowly during economic recoveries. As a result, tuition and fees have continued to climb in tandem with living costs. Despite relative stability, and even growth, over the past few years, 32 states currently fund higher education at lower per-student levels than they did in 2001./28
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26 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service. (Updated 2025, April). Reaching those in need: Estimates of state Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participation rates in 2019. https://www.fns.usda.gov/research/snap/state-participation-rates/2019
27 Plata-Nino, G. (2025, October 17). Political will and administrative priorities. Food Research & Action Center. https://www.frac.org/blog/political-will-and-administrative-priorities; The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs. (2025, October 28). Statement on USDA's decision not to spend emergency SNAP funds during the government shutdown. https://hope.temple.edu/newsroom/statements-announcements/hope-center-statement-usdas-decision-not-spend-emergency-snap-funds-during-government-shutdown
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In Iowa, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Arizona, Indiana, and Kentucky, per-student educational appropriations are down over 30 percent in that time. There are also warning signs in the current unstable economy: half of all states cut per-student higher education funding between 2023 and 2024.29 To be clear, no federal effort at helping students understand the cost of higher education will succeed without Congress also working to make public college prices stable and affordable. There is currently no permanent federal mechanism that reliably keeps states from cutting higher education, nor the type of partnership that exists in other federal programs aimed at supporting vulnerable families. State budgets are subject to economic cycles, competing priorities, and mandated obligations, making it difficult to know if under-resourced colleges will have the support they need to keep costs low and maintain vital student services. States can, and often do, impose sudden price increases on students in the form of tuition and fee hikes, and often when they are in the middle of their academic program, leading to many students feeling like college pricing is a shell game. Research even shows that those states and schools that do provide robust grant aid to students to offset tuition often target that aid in a way that does not broaden access to affordable higher education, and instead may widen economic and racial disparities in college access and success.30 The recent passage of OBBBA only exacerbates this problem by placing more obligations on states that will result in more higher education cuts, as I discuss in greater detail below.
I want to thank Ranking Member Sanders's leadership on this front, and urge the Committee to work together to create a federal-state partnership to stabilize state higher education funding, eliminate tuition and fees for most students, increase Pell Grants, and bring more transparency to college pricing. Legislation such as Ranking Member Sanders' College for All Act,31 the Debt-Free College Act,32 or America's College Promise Act33 would all take a major step in the right direction. Without a state-federal partnership, the Pell Grant and other federal programs will continue to lose value, and families will continue to have little understanding of how far financial aid actually stretches. In short, a bold guarantee that public college is tuition- or debt-free will do more to bring transparency to college pricing than almost any other proposal under consideration in Congress.
Providing a promise of tuition- or debt-free public college would transform our system from one where college prices are confusing and unaffordable, to one where students have a clear choice of pathways. Evidence from state-based tuition-free college programs (known as "Promise Programs") finds that such a guarantee increases enrollment,34 lowers student debt,35 and results in higher attainment.36 This is all the more impressive given the limitations of many state programs, some of which exclude students based on sector, enrollment status, income, age, GPA, major, or residency status after graduation.37
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28 State Higher Education Executive Officers (2024). State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) Report. https://shef.sheeo.org/report/
29 Ibid.
30 Granville, Peter (2025, November). A Better Hundred Billion. The Century Foundation (forthcoming).
31 S.1832 (119th Congress)
32 S.1848 (118th Congress)
33 S.3086 (118th Congress)
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States that have gone further and introduced programs that effectively eliminate tuition and fees and allow students to use grant aid fully for non-tuition costs, including New Mexico, have seen college enrollment outpace other states and overall debt decline.38 I encourage this Committee to take these results--from programs in red and blue states alike--seriously, and build a federal-state compact that allows students to focus resources on their basic needs. I also recommend that this Committee work with the Agriculture, Finance, and Banking Committees to simplify student access to the very public benefits that are designed to meet those needs.
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Students Need Clear and Reliable Cost of Attendance Estimates
As this Committee works to drastically lower the price of college for families, it also must ensure that families have a clear understanding of any costs that remain. Currently, college prices are remarkably confusing and opaque, resulting in very few families being able to estimate what the typical degree program costs.39 The consequences can be dire: students routinely cite the costs of a degree program and the inability to afford basic needs as both reasons for not enrolling in higher education or dropping out.40
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34 Gandara, D., & Li, A. (2020). Promise for whom? "Free-college" programs and enrollments by race and gender classifications at public, 2-year colleges. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 42 (4), 603-627. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373720962472
35 Odle, T. K. (2021). Do promise programs reduce student loans? Evidence from Tennessee Promise. The Journal of Higher Education, 92(6), 847-876. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2021.1888674
36 Bartik, T. J., Hershbein, B., & Lachowska, M. (2015, June). The effects of the Kalamazoo Promise scholarship on college enrollment, persistence, and completion (Upjohn Institute Working Paper 15-229). W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. https://www.luminafoundation.org/files/resources/the-effects-of-the-kalamazoo-promise.pdf ; Brown, E., & Quittmeyer, R. (2024, January). Tennessee Promise Evaluation (Office of Research & Education Accountability Report). Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury. https://comptroller.tn.gov/content/dam/cot/orea/advanced-search/2024/TNPromise2024Fullreport.pdf
37 Erwin, B., & Syverson, E. (2022, August 25). State Information Request: College Promise Programs Education Commission of The States. https://www.ecs.org/wp-content/uploads/State-Information-Request_College-Promise-Programs.pdf
38 New Mexico Higher Education Department. (2025). 2024 annual report. https://www.hed.nm.gov/uploads/documents/2024_NMHED_Annual_Report.pdf; New Mexico Higher Education Department. (2025, May 27). "College enrollment continues to rise in New Mexico." https://www.hed.nm.gov/news/college-enrollment-continues-to-rise-in-new-mexico
39 Picchi, A. (2024, April 17). "Confused about the cost of going to college? Join the club." CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-cost-student-debt-impact-gallup-lumina/
40 See, e.g., Gallup. (2024, June 18). Cost leading reason college students are stopping out. Gallup News. https://news.gallup.com/poll/646088/cost-leading-reason-college-students-stopping.aspx; The Hope Center, supra note 3
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I encourage this Committee, along with the current Administration, to take measures to ensure that colleges and universities accurately calculate and communicate their "cost of attendance" (COA, also commonly known as "sticker price") wherever they can.41 When institutions set and publish their COA, that figure is supposed to represent a simple estimate that includes all the basic and essential expenses they will confront in higher education, including non-tuition costs.
Accurate and reliable COA measures are crucial to helping students and families understand, prepare for, and manage the range of costs that they will incur over an academic year. It also directly determines the upper limit of federal and other financial aid that they can receive. As part of their COA estimates, institutions are responsible for accurately assessing indirect charges like off-campus housing and essential living expenses that then determine students' eligibility for financial aid.
These figures are not trivial: non-tuition costs make up 80 percent of the total price at community colleges, and over 60 percent of the price at public four-year schools.42 When those costs are underestimated, students face a shortfall that financial aid rarely covers in real time, forcing them to prematurely exhaust aid eligibility and find alternative financing on the private student loan market to pay for the costs that Title IV aid does not cover. Or worse, it forces students to work longer hours at the expense of their academic success, or drop out entirely.
The methods and calculations that schools use to make up the various non-tuition elements within their COA are largely unregulated and can result in wildly inaccurate estimates.43 For example, a study of nearly 6,000 institutions' cost estimates found that almost half of all colleges' estimated living costs are at least 20 percent above or below the actual living costs for a student living modestly with a roommate locally.44 Another analysis by New America found that, in the typical county with more than one college or university, off-campus housing estimates vary by more than $6,400 per year between nearby colleges.45 Colleges are twice as likely to underestimate costs than overestimate costs, leaving students with fewer resources to meet their needs. Yet some also overestimated their costs as well, which itself can be damaging. Students seeing artificially high prices may change their college-going behavior, opt for a different institution, or choose a different living situation or enrollment pattern than would otherwise be beneficial to their success. Many students, especially women and students of color, show an understandable aversion to taking on debt and do not enroll;46 over-inflated prices only exacerbate this dynamic.
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41 20 U.S.C. 1087ll
42 College Board (2024), supra note 20
43 McKibben, B. (2024, December). How Colleges Set Their Prices: The Need for Federal Oversight of Cost of Attendance in Higher Education. The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University. https://hope.temple.edu/sites/hope/files/media/document/CostOfAttendance_2024.pdf
44 Kelchen, R., Goldrick-Rab, S., and Hosch, B. (2017, March). The costs of college attendance: Examining variation and consistency in institutional cost allowances. The Journal of Higher Education. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221546.2016.1272092
45 Dancy, K. & Fishman, R. (2016, May 10). More than tuition: High uncertainty and complicated incentives. New America. https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/more-than-tuition-4/
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Thanks to the bipartisan work of this Committee, the FAFSA Simplification Act,47 which passed in 202148 and went into effect during the 2023-2024 financial aid award year, made changes to how institutions must calculate and convey various non-tuition expenses. Not only must each COA element be publicly disclosed on the institution's website anywhere that it discusses tuition and fees, but estimates are now required to be a little bit closer to actual costs. For example, food allowances must reflect the cost of three meals a day; students with dependents must receive a separate allowance for on-campus housing to reflect higher costs for families; living costs for students living with parents must reflect the reality that those students still often contribute to essential expenses.49 These provisions should help demystify some of the costs facing students, yet there is far more to do to standardize, and ultimately, lower the burden of non-tuition costs. Perhaps most importantly, the law removed a longtime ban on the federal government's ability to regulate institutions' non-tuition costs. Now, for the first time, the Department of Education has the ability to provide clear guardrails and guidance around the components that comprise a majority of students' bills.
This new authority has yet to be utilized, though it, along with further Congressional changes to statutory language, holds great potential in helping families understand the financial burden of higher education, while holding colleges accountable for dodgy calculations that leave students worse off. Colleges have few guidelines on how to calculate COA--the current Federal Student Aid (FSA) Handbook simply notes that "each school must determine the appropriate and reasonable amounts to include for each eligible COA category," using a "variety of methods,"50 which opens up incentives for inaccuracies, fraud, and abuse.
Currently, colleges and universities, especially those under extreme budget pressures, may be tempted to calibrate COA estimates in ways that are detrimental to students. For example, a college could artificially inflate the estimate for off-campus housing, to attract more students to seemingly lower cost on-campus housing and dining that serve as revenue generators. Or colleges may simply artificially lower costs in order to appear more affordable.51 These decisions are fundamentally political. A report released just last week by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) found that 43% of financial aid offices report institutional pressure to keep their COA from appearing too high, while only 6% faced pressure to keep it from appearing too low.52
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46 Long, M. G. (2021). The relationship between debt aversion and college enrollment by gender, race, and ethnicity: a propensity scoring approach. Studies in Higher Education,
47(9), 1808-1826. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2021.1968367 47 20 U.S.C. 1087ll
48 P.L.116-260
49 Supra note 46.
50 U.S. Department of Education. (2024). 2024-2025 Federal Student Aid Handbook, Vol. 3, Ch. 2: Cost of attendance (budget).
51 Dancy, K. & Fishman, R. (2016, May 12). More than tuition: Trends in Cost Estimates Over Time. New America. https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/more-than-tuition-5/
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I encourage this Committee to pass legislation that ensures consistency, transparency, and above all, accuracy in COA estimates. Congress should require institutions to use data-driven methods to calculate each COA component, report those methods and assumptions to the Department of Education and to students and families on their website, and update COA regularly (if not annually) to reflect any changes in costs of living. Congress should additionally require that each element of COA be included in all financial aid award letters, and that financial aid award letters are standardized, so students can better understand how to stretch their financial aid dollar. To that end, we support the bipartisan Understanding the True Cost of College Act and call on the Committee to add provisions to this important legislation to support better COA calculations.
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Students Need Support with Unexpected College Expenses
Even in cases where COA measures are transparent and largely accurate, students face unexpected expenses that can jeopardize their ability to stay in school. While federal law provides students with some recourse in these scenarios, processes are often opaque and imperfect, and resources are increasingly scarce.
Through a process known as Professional Judgment (PJ), students can, on a case-by-case basis, have their COA or financial aid package adjusted to account for costs that do not align with the allowances set by the college. Yet this tool is rarely used by schools, and students often do not know it exists.53 Colleges are reluctant to use PJ in order to avoid triggering a review or audit from the Department of Education, and many do not advertise its existence at all: a survey of financial aid administrators in September 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when students' financial situations fluctuated wildly and many could have benefitted from an appeals process, found that over half of colleges were not proactively reaching out to students about PJ.54 Colleges are also constrained by a Department of Education that, in addition to being woefully understaffed to support students themselves, produces unhelpful guidance that does not reflect students' lived reality. Current guidance for PJ in the FSA Handbook specifically includes harmful language that suggests any PJ for "recurring costs" that include "standard living expenses (e.g. utilities, credit card expenses, children's allowances, etc.)" may be unreasonable.
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52 National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. (2025, October 30). Exploring how institutions build their cost of attendance. https://www.nasfaa.org/uploads/documents/Exploring_How_Institutions_Build_Their_Cost_of_Attendance.pdf
53 Ramirez-Mendoza, J., & Jones, T. (2020, December 3). Using professional judgment in financial aid to advance racial justice & equity. The Education Trust. https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Using-Professional-Judgement-in-Financial-Aid-to-Advance-Racial-Justice-and-Equity-December-3-2020.pdf
54 National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. (2020, October). Survey on professional judgment and COVID-19. https://www.nasfaa.org/uploads/documents/Survey_Professional_Judgment_COVID.pdf
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Yet the Department's very own examples include costs that can fluctuate tremendously within a term. Take, for example, utilities: families have seen electricity bills rise over twice the rate of inflation in the past year,55 with higher rates proposed in most states this coming year.56 Students also see bills spike during periods of extreme weather, sometimes by hundreds of dollars per month. Under the FSA handbook, schools are encouraged to deny students' requests for more support, even when there is no reasonable way they could have budgeted for these costs in advance. Congress should not only work with the Department to remove harmful language about PJ from their materials and right-size the policy to meet students' needs, it should also increase transparency for students and require that colleges proactively make all financial aid applicants aware of the opportunity for PJ and be provided with all relevant procedures and campus contact information.
The Department has also subverted the bipartisan intent of the FAFSA Simplification Act, which allows for students' Student Aid Index (SAI, formerly the Expected Family Contribution) to be negative (down to -1,500), rather than stopping at 0. The negative number created a better way for colleges to understand which students need the most help and could allow states, institutions, and the federal government to provide more direct aid to students.57 However, the FSA handbook continues to state that students' total financial aid should never exceed COA, despite the fact that only Pell Grants and Direct Loans are capped in the statute. As a result, colleges cannot direct additional resources--including work study, need-based grants, or emergency aid--to students who, by definition, have the fewest resources. The Handbook policy limits the -1,500 number to be purely advisory and ties the hands of states and colleges, preventing them from directing badly-needed funds to students with very low incomes as Congress intended.
This Committee should also ensure that an unexpected cost is never a reason that students drop out. Even with accurate COA measurements, students still face life events over the course of a year--including medical bills, car repairs, job loss, and more--that can force them to come up with money that they do not have. According to the Trellis Student Financial Wellness Survey, over half (56%) of students report that they would have trouble obtaining $500 in cash or credit to meet an unexpected expense, and over two-thirds (68%) say that they had run out of money at least once since the beginning of the year.58 Among respondents of our Hope Center survey who previously stopped out of college but re-enrolled, nearly one-third (31%) cited an unexpected financial expense or emergency as the reason for originally leaving school.59
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55 Horsley, S. (2025, August 16). "Electricity bills are rising even faster than inflation -- and AI data-centers are part of why." NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/08/16/nx-s1-5502671/electricity-bill-high-inflation-ai
56 Thyagarajan, A., Friedman, J., Baker-Branstetter, S., & Marquez, L. (2025, September 9). Residents in at least 41 states and Washington, D.C., are facing increased electric and natural gas bills. Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/residents-in-at-least-41-states-and-washington-d-c-are-facing-increased-electric-and-natural-gas-bills/
57 McKibben, B. (2025, March 27). During financial aid season, colleges should support students with the greatest needs. The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs. https://hope.temple.edu/the-hope-blog/financial-aid-season-we-should-support-students-greatest-needs
58 Fletcher, C., Cornett, A., Plumb, M. H., & Ashton, B. (2025, April). Student Financial Wellness Survey report: Fall 2024. Trellis Strategies. https://www.trellisstrategies.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/SFWS-Aggregate-Report_FALL-2024_FINAL.pdf
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During the pandemic, Congress showed bipartisan leadership in establishing a nationwide emergency aid program through the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF). This effort was instrumental in keeping students enrolled and helping them meet their basic needs and non-tuition costs: 61% reported using emergency funds to purchase food, and 50% used these funds for housing.60 Emergency aid programs provide support at crucial moments in students' journeys, but they also can send a transparent and simple message to students that, should they face a moment of financial adversity, there are ample resources available to address it. This Committee should work with the Appropriations Committee to revive flexibility for the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG) program to function as emergency aid, which would dramatically boost flexible resources to students without at cost for the federal government.61 Congress should also pass the Emergency Grant Aid for College Students Act,62 which would establish a permanent emergency aid program for students, modeled off the success of HEERF and other state63 and institutional programs64 across the country.
Finally, while it is not under the jurisdiction of this Committee, Congress should immediately end a surprise tax bill that affects over 3 million Pell Grant recipients each year.65 Currently, the portion of grants and scholarships that students spend on non-tuition expenses like food, housing, and child care is often treated as "income" for tax purposes, triggering a substantial tax bill for working students who are already struggling financially. Worse, students are forced to subtract their Pell Grant from the amount of expenses for which they claim the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC), which forces them to lose out on AOTC benefits if they do not have access to a knowledgeable tax professional. This tax is especially common among community colleges, where non-tuition expenses make up 80 percent of the cost,66 adds needless complexity to the tax code, and creates yet another hidden cost for low-income students. We encourage this Committee to work hand-in-hand with the Senate Finance Committee to pass the bipartisan Tax-Free Pell Grant Act67 to remove this surprise tax penalty on low-income students.
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59 The Hope Center (2025), supra note 3.
60 National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, & HCM Strategists. (2022, October). Evaluating student and institutional experiences with HEERF. https://www.nasfaa.org/uploads/documents/Evaluating_Student_and_Institutional_Experiences_with_HEERF.pdf
61 McKibben, B. (2023, August 16). Making college financial aid flexible and responsive: The case for continuing the federal investment in emergency grants. The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs. https://hope.temple.edu/sites/hope/files/media/document/Hope-Continuing-Emergency-Aid.pdf
62 S. 1344 (118th Congress)
63 Anderson, R. (2025, June). Emergency Aid at Scale: State Efforts to Support Student Parents. HCM Strategists. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62bdd1bbd6b48a2f0f75d310/t/684778aa8634062072b43e15/1749514411374/Emergency+Aid+at+Scale+State+Efforts+to+Support+Student+Parents_final062025_web.pdf
64 Stein, T., & Butler, N. (2024, June). Maximizing the effectiveness of postsecondary emergency aid programs. Bipartisan Policy Center. https://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/maximizing-the-effectiveness-of-postsecondary-emergency-aid-programs/
65 The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs at Temple University (2022, November). Letter to Congress Urging Repeal of Tax on Pell Grants. https://hope.temple.edu/policy-advocacy/letter-congress-repeal-tax-pell-grants
66 College Board (2024), supra note 20
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Students Need a Department of Education that Promotes Transparency and Supports Vital Education Data and Research
Any robust federal effort to provide accurate information about both costs and value in higher education requires a functioning Department of Education to collect and analyze data. Yet some of the very first actions taken by the Administration earlier this year included gutting several offices within the Department, including the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), the central education data collection and research funding agency established by Congress,68 whose role is to facilitate transparency and help institutions improve and properly allocate resources. Through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), IES contracts were slashed or cancelled, and personnel that facilitate or work on the federal government's key higher education transparency efforts--including the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, College Scorecard, and various datasets run by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)--have been let go.69 In fact, several contracts that were initially eliminated were for projects required by statute, including two contracts for the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), which provides invaluable data on college affordability, enrollment, debt, and outcomes every four years,70 as well as contracts necessary for the Condition of Education report, a study produced annually on the "progress of education in the United States" that is the definitive source for education researchers and determines much of what we know about schools in the U.S., including colleges and universities, and has been the basis for decades of informed policymaking.71 While a handful of contracts have been renewed, researchers and institutions alike remain in a state of deep confusion about the state of federal education research and data collection, and data collection efforts have been stalled. A former IES Director who served in President Trump's first term has called the current situation "way too chaotic."72 The Committee has many laudable bipartisan bills to consider that would promote college cost transparency, including Senator Cassidy's College Transparency Act.73 However, each of these bills, and the existing bipartisan reforms that have been adopted in recent years, require staffing capacity at the Department of Education that, at this moment, no longer exists. From IES to the Office of Postsecondary Education and more, the loss of hundreds of key personnel has hollowed out the agency's capacity and expertise. We have heard from dozens of institutions who cannot get in touch with anyone at the Department of Education to answer questions about current federal grants, including those that help students overcome challenges with basic needs.
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67 S. 1610 (119th Congress)
68 P.L. 107-279
69 Association for Education Finance and Policy v. McMahon, No. 25-999 (April 4, 2025). https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/PC-SDDF-AFGE-complaint-final.pdf
70 Ibid.
71 P.L. 107-279
72 Quinn, R. (2025, October 21). "Trump gutted the Institute of Education Sciences. Skepticism of its renewal abounds." Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2025/10/21/trump-gutted-ies-skepticism-its-renewal-abounds
73 S. 2511 (119th Congress)
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Students Need Federal Agencies that Provide Trustworthy Consumer Information and Protect Them from Scams
Further, the Administration has worked to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which, among other roles, enforces consumer protection law, conducts industry oversight and essential research on the student loan market. The CFPB has been essential in providing consumer information to students as well as current and prospective borrowers, and collecting consumer complaints about loan companies who mislead borrowers about terms, conditions, and costs.74 As private student lending increases due to OBBBA's new strict caps on federal loans (discussed in more detail below), students need watchdogs and researchers working to make that market as transparent as possible. Instead of continuing to ensure that students and families have the information they need to navigate a growing private student loan market and protect consumers from corporate lawbreakers, CFPB Director Russ Vought attempted to illegally fire the CFPB Student Loan Ombudsman--a legislatively-mandated position charged with assisting student loan borrowers experiencing challenges with their student loans, private lenders and student loan servicers.75 The Trump Administration's CFPB has also abandoned several high-profile enforcement actions, including actions against student loan servicers for illegally collecting from private student loan borrowers whose loans had already been discharged in bankruptcy and ruining their credit by sending false information to credit reporting companies.76 At a time when more students and families will be pushed into the private student loan market in order to finance their college degree, this provides a green light for companies to further obfuscate costs and subject students and families to abusive practices. Just as students deserve transparency before they pay for college, they deserve far greater transparency from lenders about their rights after they leave school, and agencies and watchdogs willing to enforce the law on their behalf.
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74 See, e.g. the CFPB Consumer Complains Database; Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (2024, November). Annual Report of the CFPB Student Loan Ombudsman. https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_2024-annual-student-loan-ombudsmans-report_2024-11.pdf
75 Knott, K. (2025, February 18). "Student Loan Watchdog on the Chopping Block." Inside Higer Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/02/18/cfpbs-student-loan-watchdog-chopping-block
76 Student Borrower Protection Center. (2025, February). CFPB drops enforcement action against predatory student loan company. https://protectborrowers.org/cfpb-drops-enforcement-action-against-predatory-student-loan-company/
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The One Big Beautiful Bill Makes College Less Affordable, and Costs Less Clear
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes several changes to federal student aid and safety net programs that are likely to reduce state support for public colleges and universities, drive up costs, and place greater debt burdens on students and families who take on loans. Specifically, the law creates new annual and aggregate caps on the amount of loans that can be borrowed by graduate students and parents of undergraduate students that are far below the price of many programs. It also gives financial aid administrators unprecedented authority to set lower borrowing limits than what is available under the statute for certain groups of borrowers. While the Committee likely intended for these caps and provisions to reduce the cost of graduate and professional education, we expect to see a massive increase in the number of students taking out private student loans to finance their program of study, including medical school and related professions.77 In fact, we are already seeing a rapid growth of the private student loan market in preparation for the new limits taking effect next July 1, 2026, and are greatly concerned about the results for students' and borrowers' basic needs. While the Department of Education is still conducting rulemaking to determine which programs will qualify as professional programs, very large percentages of graduate and professional students will hit the new limit, meaning they will run out of money to pay for their non-tuition costs unless the price of their programs drops dramatically. Upwards of 58% of dentistry students, 26% of medicine or osteopathic medicine students, and 20% of Master of Public Health students will run out of federal borrowing eligibility.78 I strongly encourage the Committee to weigh in with bipartisan feedback during the Department's rulemaking in favor of an expansive read of professional degree programs to help protect students from the loss in borrowing that will harm their ability to afford their programs.
This shift from federal to private loans will do incredible damage to financial transparency in higher education. The private student loan market is infamous for being a black box within consumer finance. Other financial products, including mortgages, credit cards, and even federal student loans, have relatively clear data transparency, yet private student loans are not subject to the same federal data reporting requirements as other loans, leading us to know little about the actual size of the market, lending patterns, default rates and outcomes for borrowers across demographic groups, geographies, and age, and the very terms and conditions of the loans themselves.79
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77 Zhang, J. (2025, May 6). Deep dive: House reconciliation bill makes paying for college more expensive and risky for students and working families. Student Borrower Protection Center. https://protectborrowers.org/resource/deep-dive-house-reconciliation-bill-makes-paying-for-college-more-expensive-risky/
78 Cohn, J. (2025, July 24). How new federal student loan limits could affect borrowers. Urban Institute. https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/how-new-federal-student-loan-limits-could-affect-borrowers
79 Student Borrower Protection Center. (2020, April 24). Private Student Lending. https://protectborrowers.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/PSL-Report_042020.pdf
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What we do know is troubling: despite making up roughly 8 percent of the entire student loan market, private student loan companies make up an outsized portion of student loan complaints submitted to state and federal regulators, including thousands of complaints from cosigners who are unable to receive accurate information or access documentation on their cosigned loan.80 Private student loans do not come with the same consumer protections as federal student loans, and are difficult to discharge in bankruptcy.81 Borrowers are often not eligible for affordable payment options, cancellation in the case of total and permanent disability, nor are they often able to modify their payments during periods of financial hardship, as federal borrowers currently can.82 When private student loan borrowers are defrauded by their schools, they are often stymied by arbitration clauses and other provisions in contracts that limit their ability to take lenders to court.
Private student loans also function totally differently than federal loans, which are intended as an access program. Lenders are likely to avoid lending to students from low-income and low-wealth households altogether, or lend on such onerous terms that students pay far more than they ever would have or are forced to abandon their dreams of higher education altogether.83 Alternatively, low-income students--unable to access private financing from traditional private student lenders--might be forced to navigate the maze of even higher-cost, higher-risk products that have proliferated within the private market over recent years.84 Other provisions within OBBBA are likely to increase overall costs for students as well. Specifically, the law increases administrative costs on states in the SNAP program (from 50 percent to 75 percent of administrative costs) and also requires that states fund a portion of SNAP benefits based on their state's payment error rates.85 This will force states into a situation where they will be forced to cut essential spending, including higher education. One analysis found that in 16 states, the new proposed SNAP cost share is the equivalent of over 10% of annual higher education funding,86 a similar shock that they would otherwise only experience in a deep recession. And SNAP costs are not the only new fiscal pressure on states; tax revenue declined in 40 states last year as well,87 and states are now constrained from raising revenue from Medicaid provider taxes, leaving them with far fewer resources to help families weather higher costs of living, healthcare, food, and education, and putting substantial pressure on state leaders to increase tuition to fill the gap.
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80 Banez, A. C. (2024, September 17). Testimony of Aissa Canchola Banez before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protections, "Back to School: Shedding Light on Risks and Harm in the Private Student Lending and Servicing Market." Student Borrower Protection Center. https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/canchola_testimony_9-17-24.pdf
81 11 U.S.C Sec. 523.
82 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2017, October). Annual Report of the CFPB Student Loan Ombudsman, Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau. https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_annual-report_student-loan-ombudsman_2017.pdf
83 Granville, P. (2025, July 21). The FICO Factor: GOP Megabill Will Limit Who Gets to Access College. The Century Foundation. https://tcf.org/content/report/the-fico-factor-gop-megabill-will-limit-who-gets-to-access-college/
84 Student Borrower Protection Center. (2020, July) Shadow Student Debt. https://protectborrowers.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Shadow-Student-Debt.pdf
85 P.L. 119-21
86 Roberson, E. (2025, August 7). SNAP cuts set to endanger basic needs and state higher education budgets. The Institute for College Access & Success. https://ticas.org/anti-poverty/reconciliation-2025-snap-cost-shift/
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We Must Rebuild Higher Education as a Public Good
When someone wants to attend postsecondary education, whether that be a four-year degree, workforce certification, associate degree or PhD, they should not only have a clear sense of the costs and outcomes they can expect, they should also know that the federal government is committed to reducing any and all barriers that stand in their way. Not coincidentally, at a time when the current Administration has engaged in relentless rhetorical attacks on institutions, cut billions of dollars in vital funds, and proposed the elimination of entire agencies, trust in the American higher education system has dipped.88 Rebuilding this trust and addressing the damage currently being done to American students, institutions, and families means returning to the promise of public higher education as a public good.
We hear from students each day that they are working tirelessly to meet a series of costs that they cannot predict or control but pile up nonetheless. As one student in Texas summed up, "it's challenging to be a student with good grades when you're just focused on surviving, worrying about how you'll pay rent and bills and food; working to ensure you have the basic needs instead of focusing on homework and studying for your classes.89 Another in Minnesota told our researchers that "I'm trying to break generational curses and be the first college graduate in my family, and it seems I'm swimming upstream, and I know I can do this with the right amount of knowledge, resources, and support."90 These are students that make up the very essence of the American dream, and they deserve far more than a system that too often leaves them confused, indebted, and out of options. I thank this Committee for its bipartisan attention to the challenges facing students and look forward to discussing solutions with you to make their experience affordable, transparent, and transformative.
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87 Theal, J., & Fall, A. (2025, January 9). State tax revenue declines again in fiscal 2024 but shows signs of stabilizing. The Pew Charitable Trusts. https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2025/01/09/state-tax-revenue-declines-again-in-fiscal-2024-but-shows-signs-of-stabilizing
88 Jones, J. M. (2025, July 16). "U.S. public trust in higher ed rises from recent low." Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/692519/public-trust-higher-rises-recent-low.aspx
89 The Hope Center (2025), supra note 3.
90 Ibid.
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Original text here: https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/153d5827-eb01-6c45-a5a4-23daa9a2971b/Huelsman%20Testimony.pdf
Detroit Promise Zone Authority CEO Odeneal Testifies Before Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee released the following testimony by Onjila Odeneal, CEO of Detroit Promise Zone Authority, from a Nov. 6, 2025, hearing entitled "Reforming Financial Transparency in Higher Education":* * *
Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, and members of the committee,
As someone who has spent my career working at the intersection of education, equity, and economic mobility, and as a proud product of Detroit's public schools, I have witnessed firsthand how access to affordable higher education can determine the trajectory ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee released the following testimony by Onjila Odeneal, CEO of Detroit Promise Zone Authority, from a Nov. 6, 2025, hearing entitled "Reforming Financial Transparency in Higher Education": * * * Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, and members of the committee, As someone who has spent my career working at the intersection of education, equity, and economic mobility, and as a proud product of Detroit's public schools, I have witnessed firsthand how access to affordable higher education can determine the trajectoryof a young person's life. My education career and current role leading the Detroit Promise have deepened that understanding. Through my career, I've encountered and supported thousands of families from diverse backgrounds whose dreams are defined not by their ability, but by their bank accounts. I have also seen what happens when we remove that barrier--when tuition is no longer a deterrent and when the right support is in place to help students persist and complete. The transformation that follows is not just personal; it ripples across families, neighborhoods, and the broader economy.
The Detroit Promise, is a program originally launched by the Detroit Regional Chamber in partnership with local philanthropy and now transitioning into an independent nonprofit through the Detroit Promise Zone Authority (DPZA) established by the Michigan Legislature, to provide eligible graduates of Detroit high schools with postsecondary tuition-free pathways. With 32 partner institutions across the state of Michigan, Detroit Promise students have the opportunity to earn a skilled trade credential, certification, two-year degree, and or four-year degree at one of the partner institutions, tuition-free. To access Detroit Promise, a Detroit high school student registers for the program at their high school or online before graduating. Eligibility is based on Detroit high school enrollment and Detroit residency, 9th through 12th grade. The program ensures that at minimum the cost of tuition, mandatory fees, and books are covered for eligible Detroit students. If there is a gap in these costs, the Detroit Promise in partnership with the institution, fills the gap as a last dollar award. By pooling federal, state, institutional, and local aid, the program helps to remove one of the most significant barriers to opportunity--the financial cost of postsecondary education.
Beyond tuition support, the Detroit Promise acknowledges the deeper affordability challenges facing students. Through the Detroit Promise Path, a holistic student success coaching model, Detroit graduates receive proactive advising, emergency aid, financial incentives, and skill-building resources. MDRC's multi-year evaluation found that the program produced statistically significant increases in full-time enrollment, credit accumulation, and persistence--demonstrating that when financial barriers are reduced and comprehensive supports are in place, outcomes improve (MDRC, 2022). Since its inception, the Detroit Promise has supported over 8000 Detroit high school graduates at over 60 high schools in Detroit.
Still, while Detroit Promise and similar local initiatives are transformative, they cannot alone offset decades of state disinvestment, rising costs and financial aid that has not kept up. . During the Great Recession, in particular, public colleges and universities faced deep budget cuts and raised tuition to survive, shifting the cost of education further from public funds to debt taken on by students and their families. Simultaneously, the federal Pell Grant, the cornerstone of college affordability, has lost nearly half of its purchasing power over the past four decades. Once covering over 75% of public college costs, the maximum Pell Grant now covers less than one-third (College Board, 2024). The result is a system where students are told to "make informed choices" about unaffordable options--a form of transparency that provides clarity, but not opportunity.
Better information and transparency matter. For many first-generation and low-income families, even understanding the financial aid process, financial aid offers, and the long-term implications of borrowing can be overwhelming. Programs like the Detroit Promise help bridge that gap--educating families, promoting responsible decision-making, and ensuring institutions are equipped with what's needed for measurable student success. Federal and state governments, in partnership with institutions, could scale those efforts across the nation. But without affordability, higher education will remain out of reach for too many or require significant financial burden; transparency alone is an empty promise. What students need is the return of higher education as a public good, federal and state governments must once again invest together in affordability as a matter of national policy, not charity.
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The Pell Grant and the Cost of College: A Growing Divide
The Federal Pell Grant has long served as the foundation of need-based financial aid for low-income students. Yet its real value has steadily declined. For 2024-2025, the maximum Pell Grant is $7,395--barely higher than twenty years ago in nominal terms, and far less in real purchasing power. While the cost of tuition, housing, health care, and food has risen exponentially, Pell growth has been minimal. The result: what was once a guarantee of affordability has become a modest discount (College Board, 2024).
Average in-state tuition and fees at public four-year institutions range from roughly $6,000 to $17,000 per year, excluding room, board, and other essentials. Total annual costs easily exceed $25,000 (College Board, 2024). For low- and middle-income families, this means increased borrowing or working long hours while enrolled, compromising academic success and persistence. Over 43 million Americans now hold student debt, totaling more than $1.7 trillion, much of which could have been avoided if public investment had kept pace with need (U.S. Department of Education, 2024).
To realign higher education with its public mission, the Pell Grant must be doubled, restoring its coverage to at least half of total educational costs and reducing dependence on loans. Doing so would not only lower debt but also strengthen college completion and workforce readiness--delivering long-term benefits that outweigh the immediate fiscal cost.
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Beyond Tuition: The Real Barriers to College Affordability
Even when tuition is covered, non-tuition costs remain among the most significant obstacles to college completion. Research from The Hope Center (2025) found that 59% of students experience food or housing insecurity, 41% experience food insecurity, and nearly half report housing instability. These unmet basic needs directly impact academic performance, retention, and mental health.
The 2024 FAFSA redesign, while intended to simplify the aid process, also revealed the fragility of access. Technical issues and verification delays prevented millions of students from completing applications, leading to declines in enrollment--particularly among first-generation and low-income students (GAO, 2024). This demonstrates that affordability is not merely about price but also about process. Financial aid must be both adequate and accessible.
Effective programs like the Detroit Promise Path and Tennessee Promise show that comprehensive affordability models--those addressing total cost of attendance and providing coaching, emergency aid, childcare, and transportation assistance--deliver the strongest outcomes. Addressing financial, logistical, and social barriers together is essential for meaningful equity and completion outcomes.
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Making College a Public Good: Lessons from History and Imperatives for the Future
The logic for making college universally affordable mirrors the rationale that made high school a public right a century ago. During the early 1900s, rapid industrialization created demand for a more skilled workforce. Local communities recognized that free secondary education was not charity but an economic necessity. This "high school movement" (Goldin & Katz, 1998) transformed the nation, fueling mobility, innovation, and civic engagement. By the Great Depression, universal high school attendance had become a national norm.
Today, our economy stands at a similar inflection point. Automation, artificial intelligence, and global competition require postsecondary credentials for nearly two-thirds of all new jobs (Georgetown CEW, 2021). High school alone no longer provides the skills or credentials needed for middle-class stability. To maintain global competitiveness and national cohesion, the United States must extend the same public commitment to postsecondary education that it once made to high school.
Recognizing college as a public good means understanding that its benefits reach far beyond individual earnings. Higher education correlates with lower unemployment, higher tax contributions, and reduced reliance on public assistance programs like SNAP, TANF, and Medicaid (APLU, 2024). It is also associated with better health outcomes, longer life expectancy, and higher rates of civic participation, including voting, volunteering, and community leadership (Baum et al., 2022; OECD, 2023). Communities with more college graduates experience lower crime rates, greater homeownership, and stronger intergenerational stability. These collective gains underscore that investing in education is investing in the social and economic infrastructure of the nation.
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Economic and Social Returns of an Educated Populace
The evidence linking education to economic and social prosperity is overwhelming. On average, individuals with a bachelor's degree earn $2.8 million over their lifetimes, approximately 75% more than high school graduates, and significantly more than most trade-sector averages (Georgetown CEW, 2021). Even associate degrees and industry credentials lead to substantial wage gains.
Yet the broader impact extends to society as a whole. Economists such as Enrico Moretti (2004) demonstrate that each additional college graduate in a community raises the wages of workers without degrees, producing widespread economic "spillover" effects. Education also drives higher civic participation, including voting and volunteering, and reduces reliance on social safety nets. According to the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU, 2024), college graduates are 50% less likely to depend on government assistance and contribute nearly twice as much in lifetime taxes as high school graduates.
In Michigan, the Sixty by 30 Initiative reflects this understanding, linking educational attainment to workforce competitiveness and economic growth. Studies by the Upjohn Institute (2024) estimate that expanding access to affordable postsecondary education could generate billions in lifetime earnings and hundreds of millions in additional tax revenue--returns that far exceed program costs.
Education, then, is not simply a private investment in individual prosperity, it is a public dividend that compounds over generations.
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Policy Recommendations
To make higher education a true public good, national leadership --such as the vision outlined by Ranking Member Sanders in the College for All Act--must drive systemic change through federal policy and funding. The following recommendations outline how Congress and federal agencies can realign higher education with its public mission--restoring affordability, accountability, and equitable access across the nation.
1. Double the Federal Pell Grant
Restore Pell's purchasing power to cover at least half of total educational costs and reduce dependence on loans. Doubling the Pell Grant would realign federal support with modern cost realities, helping millions of students enroll full-time, complete their degrees, and enter the workforce with lower debt.
2. Reinvest in Public Higher Education
Reverse decades of state disinvestment by partnering with states to restore higher education funding to pre Great Recession levels. Federal-state matching grants should be tied to measurable outcomes in affordability, completion, and equity. Stabilizing public institutions will slow and even reverse tuition growth and expand access nationwide.
3. Make Community College Tuition-Free Nationwide
Establish a federal-state partnership to ensure that every American has access to community college without financial barriers. Funding should not stop at tuition--it must help fill the full cost gap for students, covering housing, transportation, books, food, and childcare. Addressing total costs ensures completion and equity, especially for low-income families.
4. Pair Transparency with True Affordability
Require institutions receiving federal aid to clearly disclose net price after all aid, borrowing expectations, and completion outcomes. Transparency should empower, not overwhelm, families, and must lead to realistic, affordable pathways.
5. Simplify and Safeguard the FAFSA Process
Invest in a modernized, fully funded FAFSA system to ensure timely, equitable access to aid. Improve data-sharing between agencies, eliminate redundant verification barriers, and fund local completion support networks to ensure every eligible student receives the aid they deserve.
6. Establish Federal Accountability Metrics Tied to Outcomes
Ensure federal institutional accountability metrics focus on equity, affordability, and economic mobility. Metrics should center total cost after aid, completion rates, post-graduation earnings, and debt-to-income ratios. Reward institutions that deliver value for underserved students.
7. Expand and Institutionalize Promise Programs Nationally
Scale evidence-based comprehensive affordability models that fill the cost gap for postsecondary education, not just tuition and fees. Promise programs should include wraparound supports like success coaching, transportation, emergency aid, and childcare. Embed these programs into federal-state funding partnerships to ensure affordability and completion for all.
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Conclusion
America stands once again at a crossroads in education policy. Just as we made high school universal to meet the demands of the industrial age, we must now make college accessible and affordable to meet the realities of a knowledge-based economy. The affordability crisis--fueled by stagnant federal aid, state disinvestment, and rising total costs--has left millions burdened by debt and opportunity deferred.
Programs like the Detroit Promise show what is possible: aligning affordability, accountability, and comprehensive student support to bridge gaps in both cost and understanding. Yet, local innovation cannot substitute for national will. A federal recommitment to higher education affordability--one that doubles the Pell Grant, reinvests in public institutions, modernizes FAFSA, and fills the entire cost gap for postsecondary students--is essential to rebuilding a competitive, equitable economy.
Free college is not charity; it is infrastructure. It expands opportunity, strengthens democracy, and fuels sustained economic growth. When we invest in education as a public good, the return is shared by every community, every employer, and every generation to come.
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References
* Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). (2024). The Public Value of Higher Education.
* Baum, S., Ma, J., & Payea, K. (2022). Education Pays: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society. College Board.
* College Board. (2024). Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2024.
* Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. (2021). The College Payoff: An Update.
* Goldin, C., & Katz, L. F. (1998). The Race Between Education and Technology. Harvard University Press.
* Moretti, E. (2004). Estimating the Social Return to Higher Education. Journal of Econometrics, 121(1-2), 175-212.
* Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2023). Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators.
* The Hope Center at Temple University. (2025). Student Basic Needs Survey Report.
* Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. (2024). Tuition-Free College Options for Michigan.
* U.S. Department of Education. (2024). Federal Student Loan Portfolio.
* U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). (2024). FAFSA Implementation Review.
* MDRC. (2022). Detroit Promise Path: Outcomes After Four Years.
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Original text here: https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/153d5827-eb01-6c45-a5a4-23daa9a2971b/Odeneal%20Testimony.pdf
Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to U.N. Nominee Bruce Testifies Before Senate Foreign Relations Committee
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- The Senate Foreign Relations Committee released the following testimony by Tammy Bruce, President Trump's nominee to be deputy U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, from a Nov. 19, 2025, confirmation hearing:* * *
Chairman Risch, Ranking Member Shaheen, and distinguished Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - it is my honor to appear before you today as President Trump's nominee to represent the United States as the Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
My experience in business, with non-profits, in activism, in media, as ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- The Senate Foreign Relations Committee released the following testimony by Tammy Bruce, President Trump's nominee to be deputy U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, from a Nov. 19, 2025, confirmation hearing: * * * Chairman Risch, Ranking Member Shaheen, and distinguished Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - it is my honor to appear before you today as President Trump's nominee to represent the United States as the Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations. My experience in business, with non-profits, in activism, in media, asa cultural critic, writer, and with television and radio commentary, has prepared me well for this role. I have spent most of my professional life working to make a positive difference for the American people, including my time spent as an advocate and in media, and most recently as the State Department Spokesperson and Public Delegate to the United Nations.
Today, I am reflecting on this nomination through the lens of my time as Spokesperson. Prior to that role, I had not considered a career in government, and my opinions of the bureaucracy were mostly negative - yet within days of becoming the State Department Spokesperson, I found out very quickly that many assumptions I had made about those who work for the government were wrong. Foreign Service Officers and Civil Service employees at State made my work possible. I presumed our politics were very different, yet the men and women I met were not partisan activists, but patriots determined to serve their country to make sure I was able to do the job to which the President appointed me.
Together with the appointed leadership at the U.S. Mission to the UN, and the career officials who make the work possible, I am grateful and heartened to know that change is possible, and the Founding Fathers were right to believe that the American people would be the key to making sure this great experiment would succeed. President Trump is emblematic of the Founders' vision and ideal of leadership, and I am grateful and moved by the trust he has placed in me. I understand his commitment to our great country knowing that genuine leadership and reform are needed to maintain our success so that future generations can thrive and know the joy that is being an American.
As a founding member of the United Nations, the United States has long been its strongest supporter--leading in diplomacy, global engagement, and funding. The UN has an important role to play as the premier venue where sovereign nations come together to address shared international challenges.
And yet, over the past 80 years, the UN has strayed from its original mandate as outlined in the UN Charter. The UN has become bloated, unfocused, and ineffective in solving today's most pressing challenges to global peace and security. To be blunt, it has lost the confidence of the sovereign of our country--the American people.
Now is the time for bold reform. Now is the time for the UN to get "back to the basics." The UN must return to its core purposes, above all its founding mission to maintain international peace and security. It must become more efficient, more effective, and more accountable to the Member States it serves. The UN should focus on keeping peace and preventing conflicts, while respecting the sovereignty and independence of its member states.
If confirmed, I look forward to supporting President Trump and his efforts to revitalize U.S. diplomacy - putting the nation's interests first and delivering wins for the American people. This extends to the United Nations. Guided by President Trump's commitment to peace and vision for a strong, secure, and prosperous United States, proof that the President's goals as implemented by Ambassador Waltz, can genuinely reform the UN.
Just two days ago we saw the power of American leadership with the passing of the Gaza Resolution at the UN Security Council. This historic diplomatic victory was due to the United States, guided by the leadership of President Trump, Secretary Rubio, and Ambassador Waltz, brought member states together to endorse the president' 20-Point Peace Plan, the first step to enduring peace in a region that for far too long has suffered in a status quo that destroyed lives and the future for people throughout the region for generations. This is what's possible when American leadership takes the reins.
The United States does not support, nor was the UN founded to facilitate, Member States using the UN as a platform to outsource their policymaking. If confirmed, I will work to curb China's attempts to insert Chinese Communist Party narratives within the UN and broader multilateral system. I will work with partners to oppose China's attempts to advance its own economic, political, and security interests at the expense of others and American interests. Moreover, multilateral organizations must remember that they do not exist to manifest themselves as global governing entities. It is the sovereignty of member states which must prevail.
It is crucial that UN agencies have the right leadership to advance American interests. U.S. leadership promotes American businesses, innovation, and entrepreneurship and ensures U.S. standards remain the global gold standard.
If confirmed, I am committed to ensuring U.S. funding to the UN advances policies and priorities that strictly add value to American taxpayers and American foreign policy interests. We cannot support the proliferation of divisive concepts like DEI and gender ideology, as well as a continuation of hateful anti-Israel bias.
This oversight extends to UN peacekeeping, and peace operations that need reform and reprioritization. UN peacekeeping must be more accountable, adaptable, and transparent. Peacekeeping missions need clear goals, measurable progress, and responsible use of resources to better support peace and stability.
If confirmed, and through the America First values framework, I will continue to advocate for significant reform so the UN can return to its foundational purpose of maintaining international peace and security.
As President Trump declared at the UN General Assembly - the UN has tremendous potential. Under this President's leadership, I'm confident we will continue to help the UN see this potential and return it to the useful organization it was established to be.
Thank you for your time and consideration of my nomination. I look forward to your questions.
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Original text here: https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/cf1e95cf-916c-8d47-776c-87e5b3904953/111925_Bruce_Testimony.pdf
CFTC Chairman Nominee Selig Testifies Before Senate Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry Committee
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee released the following testimony by Michael S. Selig, President Trump's nominee to be chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, from a Nov. 19, 2025, confirmation hearing:* * *
Chairman Boozman, Ranking Member Klobuchar, and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today as President Trump's nominee for Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. I am grateful to the President for placing his trust and confidence in me to lead the CFTC during ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee released the following testimony by Michael S. Selig, President Trump's nominee to be chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, from a Nov. 19, 2025, confirmation hearing: * * * Chairman Boozman, Ranking Member Klobuchar, and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today as President Trump's nominee for Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. I am grateful to the President for placing his trust and confidence in me to lead the CFTC duringthis historic time.
I want to thank the members of this Committee who took the time to meet with me ahead of this hearing. If confirmed, I look forward to working with all of you to pursue the CFTC's important mission of promoting the integrity, resilience, and vibrancy of America's commodity derivatives markets.
It is an honor to have former Commissioners and Chairmen in the room today. Thank you for your guidance, wisdom, and mentorship.
I am grateful to my best friend and wife, Ariel, who is here today, for her unwavering support. And I would like to thank my parents, Robert and Sandi, for joining me here today. My parents impressed upon me the importance of hard work and instilled in me a deep love for the United States and its values. They inspired me with stories of my family's earlier generations, who migrated here in the 1800s, fought for the Union in the Civil War, served in both World Wars and the Korean War, and pursued the American Dream. My father, who was a district attorney and president of his local school board, ingrained in me the immense value of public service.
Early in my career, I served as a law clerk for CFTC Commissioner Chris Giancarlo, who emphasized to me the importance of derivatives markets to all Americans. Our nation's farmers, ranchers, energy producers, and commercial businesses rely on futures and swaps for price discovery and risk management.
Robust markets for derivatives that enable hedgers to lock in prices help ensure that the cost of groceries, transportation, electronics, and all manner of goods and services do not fluctuate wildly for American consumers each day. If confirmed, I would welcome the vital responsibility to oversee the stability and security of these markets and protect consumers from fraud and manipulation.
During my years in private practice, I advised a wide range of market participants subject to regulation by the CFTC - from commercial end users, such as agriculture, livestock, and energy businesses, to financial institutions like futures commission merchants, swap dealers, and exchanges, as well as new entrants, including digital asset firms.
I have seen firsthand how regulators, unaware of the real-world impact of their efforts, and zeal for regulation-by-enforcement, can drive businesses offshore and smother entrepreneurs with red tape. I recall helping an agricultural merchandiser that was forced to divert significant time and resources from its business to defend itself in an extensive investigation for harmless errors in its swap data reporting.
Everyday Americans pay the price for these regulatory failures. If confirmed, I am committed to instituting common sense, principles-based regulations that facilitate well-functioning markets and keep pace with the rapid speed of innovation.
I have long believed in the mission of public service. This year, I was honored to serve as Chief Counsel of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Crypto Task Force and Senior Advisor to Chairman Paul Atkins. In this role, I have worked diligently to modernize the SEC's regulations to reflect new and evolving technologies. I have participated in the President's Working Group on Digital Asset Markets and advised on a broad swath of derivatives policy matters, including coordination with the CFTC.
We are at a unique moment in the history of our financial markets. A wide range of new technologies, products, and platforms are emerging, vertical integration is becoming more prevalent, and we are seeing unprecedented retail participation in the commodity markets. The digital asset economy alone has grown from a mere curiosity to a nearly $4 trillion-dollar market.
It is the American Spirit to conquer new frontiers. All Americans stand to benefit from a government that embraces technology, entrepreneurship, and productivity. Together, we can seize this generational opportunity to modernize and future-proof our approach to financial regulation and ensure that the great innovations of tomorrow are made in America.
If confirmed as Chairman, I commit to you that the CFTC will have a steady hand at the wheel. And, if confirmed, I pledge to work tirelessly with this Committee to facilitate well-functioning markets, promote competition and innovation, and ensure that the CFTC remains a world-class regulator in this Golden Age of American Financial Markets.
Thank you for your time today. I look forward to your questions.
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Original text here: https://www.agriculture.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/52c5cea6-9d90-5a72-c9c7-9bdd6e46fd11/Testimony_Selig_11.19.2025.pdf
American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Cooper Testifies Before Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee released the following testimony by Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, from a Nov. 6, 2025, hearing entitled "Reforming Financial Transparency in Higher Education":* * *
Good morning, Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, and distinguished members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the important subject of improving price transparency in higher education. My name is Preston Cooper, and I am a senior fellow focusing on the economics of higher ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 -- The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee released the following testimony by Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, from a Nov. 6, 2025, hearing entitled "Reforming Financial Transparency in Higher Education": * * * Good morning, Chairman Cassidy, Ranking Member Sanders, and distinguished members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the important subject of improving price transparency in higher education. My name is Preston Cooper, and I am a senior fellow focusing on the economics of highereducation at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization based here in Washington, DC. My comments today are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of AEI, which does not take institutional positions.
It's not controversial to say that college costs too much. Even worse, the high prices that colleges and universities charge are typically not transparent to students or the public. Opaque pricing makes it difficult for families to plan for higher education expenses. Even worse, this lack of transparency neuters price competition between institutions, which itself raises the cost of college. Tackling price opacity can therefore make higher education more competitive and affordable--and fortunately, the federal government has several options on the table to improve price transparency.
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The Rising Cost of College
The cost of college has risen much faster than overall consumer price inflation--indeed, college prices have grown more rapidly than the vast majority of other consumer goods and services.i The government has attempted to wage war on rising college tuition by increasing financial aid over the last several decades. Unfortunately, colleges have raised tuition faster than taxpayers can keep up. Much as the Red Queen said to Alice, we have to run faster--just to stay in place.
Between 1990 and 2020, the average net price that college students pay after applying grant and scholarship aid rose 93 percent in inflation-adjusted terms. The average student pays around $9,400 per year after subtracting grant aid. If we include both the student's contribution and the taxpayer's contribution (in the form of Pell Grants, state grants, and other noninstitutional sources of aid), average net tuition in 2020 was $14,700.ii Rising net tuition is not for lack of public investment. State government funding for public colleges and universities reached a record high in 2024 on a per-student basis.iii Congress has repeatedly increased the Pell Grant.iv States have invested more in their financial aid systems.v The average college student now receives $5,300 per year in financial aid from sources outside their institution; this figure has tripled in real terms since 1990. Low-income students, who are the intended beneficiaries of most financial aid programs, receive over $11,000 per year from financial aid.vi The government's considerable investment in financial aid represents a missed opportunity. Imagine if, instead of hiking tuition, colleges had restricted their price increases to the rate of overall consumer price inflation starting in 1990. Rather than simply slowing the rise in net tuition, increases in the Pell Grant and state aid since then would have reduced tuition. Under this alternative scenario, tuition for the average student at a four-year public college would be effectively free today.vii This hasn't happened because colleges have captured increases in financial aid rather than passing them along to students. Higher education's opaque pricing system, in which it's next to impossible for students to determine how much financial aid they are receiving and what they will actually have to pay, is at least partially responsible.
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How Colleges Conceal Their True Prices
The outrageous "sticker prices" some colleges advertise online--which can exceed $100,000 per year--are not indicative of what most students actually pay for their education.viii Almost two-thirds of college students, and over 80 percent of low-income college students, receive some grant or scholarship aid that brings down tuition to a "net price" that they will actually pay.ix But how much aid any given student will receive--and therefore what her net price will be--is typically not apparent upfront.
That is because colleges use their financial aid programs to price-discriminate, or charge different prices to different students based on their perceived ability and willingness to pay. There is nothing wrong with this in principle. Many industries charge consumers different prices for similar products. I might pay more for an airline ticket if I fly direct during a busy period, while I might pay less if I fly at six in the morning and accept a layover. But there's a key difference between normal price discrimination and pricing in higher education. Using online tools, I can look up what the prices are for various airline tickets almost instantaneously, which enables me to "shop around" for the best deal. This gives airlines an incentive to offer reasonable prices, since I can decide to go with a competitor if I think the price is too high.
It's not so in higher education. Students generally do not learn their net prices ahead of time. For a student to find out what she will pay, she usually needs to apply to college, be accepted, and receive a financial aid offer letter. Every college application involves costs in time or money. Most students apply to between one and three colleges--and may be accepted to just one, or none of them.x By the time a student receives her aid offers and learns the net prices of the colleges to which she applied, her options are extremely limited. It's much harder to "shop around" for the best deal when your choices are so constrained. Walking away from a bad deal might mean not going to college at all.
That also assumes students can decipher the financial aid offers they receive. While banks must provide home mortgage borrowers with a standardized disclosure form listing key costs and figures, colleges are not required to give students a standardized aid offer.xi Instead, colleges are free to present information on financial aid, student loans, and net prices in highly misleading ways.
A 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that 91 percent of a representative sample of financial aid offers did not include an accurate net price. Some offers understated the net price, for instance by counting student loans as "aid." Meanwhile, 41 percent of offers did not include a net price at all--leaving students to decipher the award letters to determine how much they would be responsible for paying.xii
Egregious practices abound. GAO highlighted one financial aid offer which listed a net price of just $351. But the school reached that figure by subtracting over $40,000 in federal student and parent loans--meaning the true net price was over 100 times higher. Other institutions do not clearly label loans as "loans," instead substituting shorthand terms like "PLUS." These refer to Parent PLUS loans, but use of just the word "PLUS" can easily be mistaken for, say, grants or institutional aid. One offer letter mentioned in GAO's report packaged a student with roughly $25,000 in student loans, despite never using the word "loan."xiii This chicanery leads students and families to pay more for college than they think they will before starting the application process. Research shows that students often underestimate how much student debt they've taken on, and some students don't realize they have debt at all.xiv Moreover, financial aid offers are usually given on an annual basis--meaning that for new students, the aid offer covers only the first year of college. After a student has been enrolled in a particular institution for a year, she is more captive to the school. There is time and effort involved in transferring between colleges, and students usually cannot transfer all of their credits.xv That gives colleges more power to reduce financial aid awards for returning students, thereby raising net prices even further. According to estimates by Mark Kantrowitz, upperclassmen face an annual net price $1,400 higher than the net price they paid as freshmen.xvi Students usually cannot know what they will pay before applying to college. There is no guarantee that the price they pay during their freshman year will hold for all four years of college. Many financial aid offers are designed to mislead, making it difficult for students to understand their costs or how much they are borrowing. All this has given colleges the upper hand. Institutions have exploited this lack of price transparency to raise tuition and capture the investments taxpayers have made in financial aid. While observers have recognized this problem, past efforts to fix it have fallen short.
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The Shortcomings of Net Price Calculators
Institutions--along with some third-party organizations--have built so-called "net price calculators" to help students understand what they might pay for college before they apply. While well-intentioned, and often an improvement on the status quo, these efforts fall short of providing true price transparency. A truly useful net price calculator would operate much like a price-comparison tool for airfares: It would provide rapid, precise, and binding prices. A student should be able to instantaneously look up the exact price they would pay at any given institution, which the school in turn would have to honor. That is how price comparison tools like Kayak, Skyscanner, or Expedia work--but net price calculators for higher education don't meet the same standards.
Net price calculators that rely on publicly available data, such as the net price data reported through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), have key shortcomings.xvii Institutions report net prices within five broad categories of student family income, and report only average net prices rather than ranges.xviii Lags in data reporting mean net price information is several years old (the most recent data as of this writing were from the 2022-23 academic year), which makes it less useful as prices can rise and financial aid award patterns can change. Moreover, net prices by family income are only reported for students receiving Title IV federal student aid, which excludes over 40 percent of undergraduates.xix These limitations mean that calculators based on the IPEDS net price data are of limited utility to students.
Federal law requires institutions participating in federal aid programs to host net price calculators on their own websites.xx These calculators may consider an institution's proprietary pricing algorithms when producing net price estimates, and they may be updated with real-time data on tuition charges and financial aid. But these net price calculators often require significant effort on the student's part to use. Some colleges ask prospective students about the remaining value of their parents' mortgage and the balance of their parents' retirement plan, along with other financial data that may be difficult for students and college counselors to retrieve on their own.xxi Financial aid professionals report that most students don't complete the pages and pages of queries these net price calculators require.xxii This makes it difficult to know the net price at any one institution, let alone compare prices across several college options. Moreover, many net price calculators yield ranges for possible net prices rather than precise estimates. The gap between "low" and "high" net price estimates can be $20,000 or more at some institutions, making it difficult to plan financially for educational expenses.xxiii Finally, net price calculators are not binding. Schools are still free to charge a higher net price than the calculator showed once the student actually applies to college and receives a financial aid offer. And there is nothing to stop institutions from raising net prices in later years.
Today's net price calculators are a far cry from the ideal world of transparent, comparable, and binding prices. Fortunately, Congress has unique power to improve price transparency in higher education.
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Solutions to Price Opacity
There are several policies that could improve the state of price transparency in higher education. The below reforms range, in rough order, from incremental to more fundamental changes to the way college pricing operates in the United States.
Triple down on better data. Publicly available data on net prices, which largely comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, through IPEDS, is suboptimal for the reasons enumerated above. But the Trump administration is currently engaged in the Financial Value Transparency initiative, begun under its predecessor, to compel reporting of detailed, student-level data on net prices.xxiv The administration should publicly report this data wherever possible, taking appropriate steps to protect student privacy. Congress can help by officially authorizing the Financial Value Transparency data-collection efforts--or go further by creating a postsecondary student-level data system through the bipartisan, bicameral College Transparency Act.xxv While better data will not create full price transparency--even the best data will be reported with a lag--it will give students and families far greater insight into the typical net prices charged at different colleges. Students will therefore have some ability to compare net prices before they apply and can elect to avoid colleges that charge too much.
Standardized financial aid offers. When a family applies for a home mortgage, their bank must give them a standardized disclosure form listing key facts about the loan. Members of Congress have introduced various proposals to standardize financial aid offer letters as well, such as Senator Chuck Grassley's (R-IA) Understanding the True Cost of College Act.xxvi Standardized financial aid offers should list grants and loans separately, and include a clear net price that does not subtract out loans. Students who borrow ought to receive information about loan volumes, interest rates, origination fees, and estimated monthly payments. Where possible, students should also receive information about their expected earnings after leaving college, so they can judge whether the amounts they're borrowing are reasonable.
Four-year price guarantees. Students must attend college for multiple years to complete a degree--yet colleges have considerable power to hike prices after the first year. The College Cost Reduction Act, introduced last year by Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC), would have required certain institutions to offer a "maximum total price guarantee."xxvii As a condition of some federal funding, colleges would be required to communicate upfront how much students would need to pay over the course of their entire degree program--not just the first year. This would bar institutions from raising prices later on in a student's college career and give prospective students certainty regarding the full costs of their education. The federal government would not directly set prices--but colleges would need to disclose the full price of their educational offerings upfront.
Binding net price calculators. While the federal government requires colleges to offer net price calculators as a condition of federal funding, it could go a step further and require these calculators to give precise and binding net prices to prospective students before they even apply. After prospective students submit their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), institutions would be required to use only this information to provide students with a maximum net price should they request one. The institution would have to honor this price should the student decide to apply and enroll. The federal government could also compile these estimates into a universal net price calculator in order to facilitate price comparisons across many institutions. While such a system would mark a significant departure from the way college pricing currently operates, such comparable, precise, and binding net price figures would make tuition far more transparent and encourage price competition between institutions, bringing down college costs for all students.
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Conclusion
America's students deserve more transparency around how much they will pay for college. Unfortunately, the college pricing system is opaque, which hamstrings competition between institutions and leads to students paying more--and borrowing more--than they should. But through collecting better data, standardizing financial aid offers, and compelling institutions to offer binding estimates of net prices, Congress has the power to pull back the curtain on what students will really pay for college--leading to a virtuous cycle of competition that will bring down one of the most stubbornly high-cost consumer services in the modern economy.
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Footnotes:
i Mark J. Perry, "Chart of the Day... Or Century?" American Enterprise Institute, July 23, 2022, https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-or-century-8/.
ii Preston Cooper, Trends in Net College Tuition and Financial Aid, 1990-2020, American Enterprise Institute, March 13, 2025, https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/trends-in-net-college-tuition-and-financial-aid-1990-2020/.
iii Andrew Gillen, "Trends in Higher Education: State Funding, Tuition, and Revenue at Public Colleges, 1980-2024," Cato Institute, July 17, 2025, https://www.cato.org/briefing-paper/trends-higher-education-state-funding-tuition-revenue-public-colleges-1980-2024.
iv Jason D. Delisle and Cody Christensen, Pell Grant Mission Creep: How a Federal Program for Low-Income Families Expanded to the Middle Class, American Enterprise Institute, July 11, 2019, https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/pell-grant-mission-creep-how-a-federal-program-for-low-income-families-expanded-to-the-middle-class/.
v National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs, "NASSGAP Annual Survey," https://www.nassgapsurvey.com/.
vi Cooper, Trends in Net College Tuition and Financial Aid, 1990-2020, American Enterprise Institute.
vii Cooper, Trends in Net College Tuition and Financial Aid, 1990-2020, American Enterprise Institute.
viii Brandon Truitt, , "Some Massachusetts Colleges Will Now Cost More Than $100,000 a Year," CBS Boston, April 1, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/wellesley-college-tufts-university-tuition-costs/.
ix US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, "Table 331.10. Percentage of Undergraduate Students Receiving Financial Aid, by Type of Aid and Selected Student Characteristics: 2019-20," Digest of Education Statistics, June 2023, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_331.10.asp?current=yes.
x US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, College Applications of 2009 High School Freshmen: Differences by Race/Ethnicity, August 2017, https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/2017013.pdf.
xi Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, "Closing Disclosure Explainer," https://www.consumerfinance.gov/owning-a-home/closing-disclosure/.
xii US Government Accountability Office, Financial Aid Offers: Action Needed to Improve Information on College Costs and Student Aid, November 2022, https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-104708.
xiii US Government Accountability Office, Financial Aid Offers: Action Needed to Improve Information on College Costs and Student Aid.
xiv Elizabeth J. Akers and Matthew M. Chingos, Are College Students Borrowing Blindly? Brookings Institution, December 2014, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/are-college-students-borrowing-blindly_dec-2014.pdf.
xv US Government Accountability Office, Higher Education: Students Need More Information to Help Reduce Challenges in Transferring College Credits, August 14, 2017, https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-17-574.
xvi Mark Kantrowitz, "Deciphering Your Financial Aid Offer (Part 3)," The New York Times, April 25, 2012, https://archive.nytimes.com/thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/kantrowitz-finaid-offers-part-3/.
xvii US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, "Table 5. Among Title IV Institutions Operating on an Academic Year Calendar, Average Academic Year Cost of Attendance, Average Grant/Scholarship Aid, and Net Price of Attendance for Full-Time, First-Time Degree/Certificate-Seeking Undergraduate Students, by Control of Institution, Level of Institution, Type of Aid Awarded, and Family Income Level: United States, Academic Year 2022-23," Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, Fall 2023, https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/search/viewtable?tableId=36420.
xviii Association for Institutional Research, "IPEDS Cost Survey Component: Calculating Average Net Price," 2024, https://www.airweb.org/docs/default-source/ipeds-tutorials/cost-calculating-net-price.pdf?sfvrsn=d3ba93fc_1.
xix US Department of Education, "Table 331.10. Percentage of Undergraduate Students Receiving Financial Aid, by Type of Aid and Selected Student Characteristics: 2019-20."
xx US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, "Net Price Calculator Information Center," https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/report-your-data/resource-center-net-price.
xxi MyinTuition, "Quick College Cost Estimator," https://myintuition.org/quick-college-cost-estimator/.
xxii Johanna Alonso, "Can an Instant Price Estimator Help Students See Private Colleges as Affordable?," Inside Higher Ed, October 15, 2025, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/financial-aid/2025/10/15/private-colleges-launch-instant-net-price-estimator.
xxiii Alonso, " Can an Instant Price Estimator Help Students See Private Colleges as Affordable?," Inside Higher Ed.
xxiv US Department of Education, Office of Federal Student Aid, Financial Value Transparency and Gainful Employment (FVT/GE) User Guide, Volume 1- FVT/GE Student Submittal Reporting, December 2024, https://fsapartners.ed.gov/sites/default/files/2024-06/Vol1FVTGEStudentSubmittalUserGuide.pdf.
xxv US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, "Chair Cassidy, Warren, Colleagues Reintroduce College Transparency Act," press release, July 29, 2025, https://www.help.senate.gov/rep/newsroom/press/chair-cassidy-warren-colleagues-reintroduce-college-transparency-act.
xxvi Senator Chuck Grassley, "Grassley, Smith Reintroduce Bipartisan Bills to Help Students Navigate College Costs," press release, May 1, 2025, https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-smith-reintroduce-bipartisan-bills-to-help-students-navigate-college-costs.
xxvii US House Committee on Education and Workforce, "Foxx Spearheads Legislation to Address Rising College Costs," press release, January 11, 2024, https://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=409975.
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Original text here: https://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/153d5827-eb01-6c45-a5a4-23daa9a2971b/Cooper%20Testimony.pdf