For most American college students, the non-tuition portions of the cost of attendance (room and board, books and supplies, and a miscellaneous expenses category) are larger than tuition and fees. Colleges can set these estimates as they deem fit, and previous research by me, Sara Goldrick-Rab of Temple University, and Braden Hosch of Stony Brook University shows a large amount of variation in living allowances among colleges in the same geographic area. This means that similar students can access different amounts of financial aid—and that colleges with the same tuition price can look much different in a range of accountability measures.
As the U.S. Department of Education currently does not provide guidance for colleges in setting these allowances (and Higher Education Act reauthorization looks increasingly unlikely in 2018), it is worth exploring whether states should step in and provide some assistance for their public colleges and universities. In the two blog posts below, I teamed up with David Tandberg of the State Higher Executive Officers Association and Sarah Pingel of Education Commission of the States to further examine the topic.
Detailed post (with data on variations within and across states)
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Robert Kelchen 