A report released this week finds not all colleges are affordable for the students who’d like to attend them. In Iowa, 23 of the 25 public institutions or 92-percent are accessible to college-qualified, low-income students who are between 18 and 25. But only four of the state’s 29 private institutions, fourteen percent, are accessible to those would-be students. Co-author of the study Derek Price explains researchers compared the costs of college and incomes of families in each state to see how many would-be students were stopped by the cost.He says they wanted to document for policy makers and stakeholders in education the degree to which college is affordable to dependent and independent students from low and median-income backgrounds. Dependent students have parents helping them, the independent ones are age 25 to 34 and paying their own bills. Price says the report figured college affordability state-by-state. In Iowa, 49-percent of the public and private institutions were unaffordable to dependent low-income students. Price says while the older students and those who got loans could make it to college, no state in the U-S had 100-percent of its schools available for students who want to go but don’t have the cash. College affordability isn’t just a school, state or business problem, but requires many leaders and policymakers to come together. The nonprofit Lumina Foundation was founded when student loan provider Sallie Mae bought out the loan-service company USA Group.
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