Chart assignment
Charts to read and discuss
Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.
Chart 1 of 1 · College
What does a year at a private college cost after grants?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
At the typical private nonprofit four-year college in the school year that ended in June 2025, the full cost of a year (tuition, housing, food, books and other costs) was $51,000. After grants and scholarships, students whose families earned up to $30,000 paid a median of $18,524, and those from families earning over $110,000 paid $29,820, still below the full cost. Net prices count first-time, full-time undergraduates who received federal aid; each bar is the median of colleges' averages. Loans are not subtracted, because they have to be repaid.
Questions to discuss
- In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
- Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
- Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?
Source: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Jun 30, 2025
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