Limited Means, Limited Options: College Remains Unaffordable for Many Americans asserts that the college affordability problem in America is not only real, but is largely a problem of inequity.
Based on a definition of affordability that accounts for variation in household income and family size, Institute for Higher Education Policy’s analysis of net price data for more than 2,000 colleges reveals that college affordability varies dramatically between students with different family incomes, enabling a wealthy student to attend essentially any college while effectively shutting out many of her peers.
For instance, 95 percent of U.S. colleges would be out of reach financially for a student whose family makes $69,000 or less, according to Alain Poutré, Jamey Rorison, and Mamie Voight