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California-based Jennifer Klein is a single mom and freelance sign language interpreter whose income varies from one month to the next. When her daughter began applying to four-year colleges last year, the cost to attend was always going to be front and center. But Klein is also remarried, which changes the math in the eyes of FAFSA (the Free Application for Federal Student Aid). Figuring out what school her daughter could afford to attend was a confusing landscape.

Given a lack of easily accessible information on college affordability, Klein and her daughter did what many families do: applied to schools of interest and hoped for the best when it came to scholarships and aid. “I told her to apply wherever she wanted and we’d see what happens,” Klein said. “I just jumped in and filled out FAFSA, having no idea if that was helping or hurting.”

Klein’s daughter is a high-performing student, so they had that in their corner. After whittling down her list and sending out applications to colleges in the West Coast region, Klein’s daughter received good news: The University of California, Davis offered her the prestigious Regents Scholarship, worth $7,500 per year. The state of California also chipped in $7,400 through its Middle Class Scholarship, bringing the $46,000 sticker price down to approximately $30,000. Additionally, Klein took out a Parent PLUS loan to help round out the remaining costs not covered by savings and income.

In the grand scheme of things, the Kleins had an easy ride. But for lower-income and first-generation students who have had little to no exposure to the complex college affordability equation, there’s often a sense of helplessness. High schools may not have the resources to adequately inform these students about monies available to them. Left with not much more than the sticker price they read on a college website, many students give up and fall through the cracks, never knowing what funding might be available. 

According to the National College Attainment Network, these students left $4.4 billion in unclaimed Pell Grants in 2024, which represents an increase of $400 million from the class of 2023. “So much comes down to students and families knowing what to expect from college costs so that they can prepare for the future,” said Brendan Williams, vice president of knowledge at uAspire, a non-profit organization whose mission is to improve the economic mobility of underrepresented students by creating financial solutions to diverse postsecondary pathways. “When they miss out on understanding the funding available to them, these students and families think college isn’t affordable.” 

Even when introduced to some of the funding avenues, students and their parents can find the FAFSA, financial aid, and scholarship applications processes confusing. Most people, according to an NCAN survey, significantly overestimate the cost of both public two- and four-year institutions. 

“Most first-gen students assume they can’t afford college or that they’ll have to go into massive debt to afford it,” said Shellee Howard, C.E.O. and professional certified college consultant at College Ready. “There’s also a lot of negativity surrounding college affordability on social media, which discourages students before they even have a chance to succeed.”

There’s also the issue of language barriers in some cases, which adds an extra hurdle for some first-gen students and their families. The result is that too many students are missing out on opportunities. At a time when recent research points to the fact that by 2031, 72 percent of jobs  will require post-secondary education and/or training, that’s a giant loss for students — and the economy as a whole. 

A Landscape of Confusion 

In an ideal world, all high school students and their families would receive detailed information and assistance about the costs of college and ways to make it affordable. The government’s Federal Student Aid website would be easy to navigate and FAFSA/the student aid index easily understandable. But that’s not the world in which students live. 

“The system is broken,” Howard said. “It’s a huge problem and has existed for years.”

Howard was a first-gen student herself and today is the parent of four children who have all navigated the college application process, graduating debt free with her help. “If a family has an education and the finances, they hire a consultant to help them,” she said. “But if they are first generation, they have a long runway to start the process and don’t know what resources exist.” 

For lower-income and first-generation students who have had little to no exposure to the complex college affordability equation, there’s often a sense of helplessness.

One federal resource, housed under the Department of Defense Education Activity and designed to help students with college readiness, is the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program. Its stated goal is to support students in the “academic middle” —those who have the potential to succeed at increasingly higher levels but may need additional support to fully realize their potential. The program’s centerpiece is a toolkit to support future-ready skills like time management, organization, and critical thinking. It also touches on financial literacy, with 85 percent of students who participate submitting FAFSA, compared to an average of 61 percent in the 2023-2024 academic year. 

At its best, AVID is a nationwide program facilitated by high school guidance counselors that students can take as a subject or in a study hall. According to Howard, however, not all AVID programs are created equal, and many are not integrated into curriculum. “At some schools, you may have a very motivated teacher who ensures AVID is easily available, and those students have a big advantage,” she said. “At others, students have to seek out the program and assistance.”

The affordability problem — or lack of financial literacy surrounding it — extends beyond first-gen and low-income students, however. Evelyn Jerome-Alexander, a college counselor with Magellan College Counseling, frequently works with middle-class families. “The families who hire me and my team generally appear on paper to be able to afford the somewhat obnoxious sticker prices of the most well-known colleges,” she said. “Many just grit their teeth and ‘find a way’ to pay for college. My focus is helping them realize there are so many opportunities for their kids to get a great education without taking money from their retirement accounts.” 

Jerome-Alexander finds that most high school counselors don’t have the bandwidth to help students go beneath the surface with college affordability because much of the equation is highly individualized. One issue is the federal student aid index (S.A.I.), she said. “The S.A.I. sees an income level but doesn’t understand your expenses and what you have to spare for education.” 

One family Jerome-Alexander worked with, for instance, had a nice six-figure income. After going through the S.A.I. via FAFSA, they received no financial aid. On the surface, this would appear logical and realistic for such a high income. “But they also had a special needs child that requires very big expenses and will well into the future,” she said. “FAFSA doesn’t care about that or about how much you spend on education.”

This was a case where Jerome-Alexander’s guidance to complete the College Scholarship Service Profile application — which colleges and universities use to award non-federal institutional aid — made a big difference for the family. 

But families who can access counseling services like Jerome-Alexander’s and Howard’s are the lucky ones. Lower-income and first-gen students depend on their schools, web searches, books, and more resources they may not realize are available.

Programs to Help 

Like uAspire, MyinTuition is a non-profit with a mission to help mid- and low-income students understand the cost of college and find their most affordable option. Created by Phillip Levine, a professor and economist at Wellesley College, the organization runs on the theory that there’s an information problem when it comes to college costs. “To make a good decision about college, you need to know how much it will cost,” he said. “We haven’t made that easy in America.” 

While the federal government requires that all public higher ed institutions post the cost of college on their websites, the truth is that very few students actually pay full price, Levine said. “If you have a very high income, you’ll pay that number,” he said. “But most people are not in that category.”

Most people, however, don’t understand that fact. Net price calculators can be difficult to find and use; there’s a good deal of confusing jargon in college-cost speak; and even FAFSA can deter people nervous about sharing their tax information. This is where community-based non-profits hope to fill in the gaps. 

MyinTuition has created its own fiscal tools to help aspiring college students understand their real costs. Right now, the organization is partnered with about 70 colleges and universities. “It’s not perfect, but it provides a ballpark estimate and range, which is a huge advantage,” Levine said. 

Getting tools and information dispensed to students and their families will continue to be one of the biggest barriers, and Williams from uAspire sees lost opportunities here. “I can’t reiterate how important it is that college costs are family conversations,” he said. “High school is a time when you have a captive audience, but often, even when there are informational meetings, they take place when many low-income parents might be working.”

Today, uAspire operates in Boston, New York, and the San Francisco Bay Area, working alongside high school counselors. Where they don’t have a physical presence, Williams and his team are deploying to high schools in a “train the trainer” format. Williams hopes to keep building out his model, continuously working to close the financial literacy gap.

An Uncertain Future 

The wild card in all things related to college affordability is change at the federal government level. Step by step, the Department of Education is shutting down. The department, which has long administered the federal student aid program, is transferring the TRIO programs, for instance, which provide post-secondary education services for people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The D.O.E. is also offloading the Title III Part B program, which provides grants to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as the Gaining Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs.

The $1.5 trillion federal student aid program will likely land with the Small Business Administration, which has no experience managing the program and has experienced its own 40 percent staffing cuts this year. 

And then there is the Big Beautiful Bill. “The bill is vague and there are many misconceptions surrounding it,” Howard said. “It has both advantages and disadvantages.”

In the plus column, Howard believes, is the fact that the bill allows more flexibility for 529 plans. Families will now be able to use 529 plans for credentialing programs and trade certifications. They will also be able to apply funds to tutoring, testing fees, and continuing education programs required to obtain or maintain professional credentials. 

Yet as it stands, the bill is also gutting $300 billion from higher education, eliminating the most affordable repayment options on student loans. By some measures, the bill will mean that a typical college graduate will pay nearly $3,000 more per year in student loan payments. 

Other changes from the bill include the elimination of Grad PLUS loans, which cover expenses for graduate-level programs, and new caps on Parent PLUS loans beginning in 2026. Klein, who is using a Parent PLUS loan, remains unaffected, as the program grandfathers in borrowers prior to July 1, 2026. 

While the future remains uncertain, Levine said there is some bi-partisan agreement that understanding college costs is too complicated and creating a significant barrier to entry for too many eligible students. Whether this results in any sort of reform in today’s environment is anyone’s guess. For now, however, Levine has this thought: “At the end of the day, we want students applying to schools that are the best fit for them academically and geographically. If their decision is based on affordability, that’s a constraint. If they can afford it and don’t realize it, however, that’s a failure in the system.”