College Board Archives - Wally Boston - American Public University System

The Current Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid

October 30, 2020 Wally Boston

Finding consistent sources of accurate data for many industries is not easy. Higher education is no exception. For those in the know, the College Board’s annual Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid report is a valuable resource, providing college pricing and other data for more than two decades.

Higher Education in the Digital Age by William Bowen

April 15, 2013 Wally Boston

Bill Bowen is an economist, president emeritus of Princeton University and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as founding chairman of ITHAKA. His most recent book, Higher Education in the Digital Age, received much advanced press so I pre-ordered a copy through Amazon. Stanford University President John Hennessy invited Bowen to deliver the 2012 Tanner Lectures given last October. Higher Education in the Digital Age is a revised publication of the lectures given. The book is organized in a way to explore two current topics in higher education: 1) the cost disease and productivity concept in higher education and 2) whether the deployment of technology and online learning in particular can cure the cost disease. Stanford arranged for formal responses to the lectures with participation by President Hennessy, Andrew Delbanco of Columbia University, Daphne Koller of Stanford University and Coursera, and Howard Gardner of Harvard University. Those responses and Bowen’s comments are included as part of the book.

The “Manageable” Debt Load of Recent Graduates

November 13, 2009 Wally Boston

An August 11th article in The New York Times caught my attention. Written by Tamar Lewin, the article describes a policy brief released by the College Board which concludes that for the most part, recent graduates are carrying “manageable” debt loads. Using data published in the Department of Education’s National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, the policy brief notes that while the number of students using loans to pay for their post-secondary educations has increased in the last five years, the volume of students who carry overly burdensome levels of debt upon graduation remains small in comparison.

Trends in College Pricing – 2008

November 3, 2008 Wally Boston

The College Board has published an annual report on college pricing since 1998. The report looks at tuition and fees, room and board, and other related costs at colleges in the United States. It also reviews the net price of college after subtracting financial aid grants to students. Colleges are categorized as public four-year, public two-year, and private non-profit four year.