Like others mentioned in comments, the article entirely neglects to address the distinction between grants and loans, talking only about "financial aid". If you have to pay back a loan later, that's still part of the cost.
The article also switches back and forth talking about different timeframes. It starts off by talking about tuition trajectory since 2014. Usually when I hear people lamenting the increase in college costs, they're talking about a much longer timeframe, like since the 1970s. And indeed the article says:
> This pricing strategy took hold in the early 1980s. Since then, Levine has found, the sticker cost of attending a four-year public or private university—tuition plus fees and room and board—has almost tripled after adjusting for inflation.
But then in the next paragraph:
> Only students whose families make more than about $300,000 a year and who attend private institutions with very large endowments pay more than they did a decade ago, Levine said.
Those are two different timeframes. Either may be useful, but you can't support a statement like "well costs haven't really gone up" by just cherry-picking random numbers from decades apart.
The last two paragraphs of the article talk about colleges "advertising their value proposition" and how they "can’t afford to push students away". This smacks of a corporate viewpoint towards higher education that makes me suspicious of the whole piece.
The article also switches back and forth talking about different timeframes. It starts off by talking about tuition trajectory since 2014. Usually when I hear people lamenting the increase in college costs, they're talking about a much longer timeframe, like since the 1970s. And indeed the article says:
> This pricing strategy took hold in the early 1980s. Since then, Levine has found, the sticker cost of attending a four-year public or private university—tuition plus fees and room and board—has almost tripled after adjusting for inflation.
But then in the next paragraph:
> Only students whose families make more than about $300,000 a year and who attend private institutions with very large endowments pay more than they did a decade ago, Levine said.
Those are two different timeframes. Either may be useful, but you can't support a statement like "well costs haven't really gone up" by just cherry-picking random numbers from decades apart.
The last two paragraphs of the article talk about colleges "advertising their value proposition" and how they "can’t afford to push students away". This smacks of a corporate viewpoint towards higher education that makes me suspicious of the whole piece.