Colleges and universities have scrambled to reframe the narrative around affordability and value. Contrary to public opinion, the cost of college hasn’t just stabilized over the past decade, it has declined significantly.
New research from the D.C.-based think tank Brookings found that inflation‑adjusted net prices—the amount students actually pay after grants and scholarships—have dropped for virtually all students over the past five to 10 years across public and private institutions.
“While there may still be room to improve affordability, if anything the evidence suggests that college has, for the most part, become more affordable in the last decade,” writes Phillip Levine, Brookings economist and the report’s author.
Who is paying lower college costs?
Families earning about $40,000 annually have seen the most substantial reductions in inflation-adjusted tuition across institution types.
In the 2025-26 academic year, the nation’s most well-endowed private institutions charged around $5,000 per year, a whopping 28.1% decrease from six years ago. By covering the bulk of tuition, universities reduce students’ remaining costs to an amount they can earn through part-time work, without requiring any financial help from their families, Levine writes.
The net price for low-income students continued to drop anywhere from 12.7% to 16.8% across less wealthy private colleges and public colleges, including state flagships.
Middle-income families—those earning $85,000 to $140,000—also experienced double-digit declines in net prices across all private institution types.
The more endowed an institution, the more significant the net price drop. For example, since 2015, students from families earning $85,000 a year saw 42.6% reduction in prices at highly selective, private institutions.
The only group seeing recent increases is high‑income families at highly endowed private colleges. Even so, their costs remain lower than in the late 2010s.
Despite the increased affordability for lower-income students, the wealthy “elite” private institutions continue to enroll disproportionately high numbers of students from higher-income households, Levine noted.
The misperception gap
Institutions have committed to spending more on need-based financial aid for students. The latest NACUBO report on endowment spending found that nearly half of all funds were directed toward financial aid.
As the amount families pay has fallen, college sticker prices have dramatically increased. Artificially high tuition prices meant to signal prestige at some schools have dissuaded students from applying.
Meanwhile, as housing and healthcare expenses continue to rise, families often assume that college costs must be doing the same.
“These findings should not be read as minimizing the financial strain many families experience but rather as evidence that those strains are not being driven by rising college net prices,” Levine concluded.
