BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – May 1 is known as National College Decision Day, a familiar milestone for many college-bound students deciding where to enroll.
But choosing a college is only part of the equation. Families also have to figure out what they will actually pay – and that number is not always easy to find.
To help Alabama families compare those costs, Alabama Daily News reviewed federal data on the cost of attendance and average net price at Alabama colleges and universities. The figures, from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, cover the 2023-24 school year, the most recent year available in the federal dataset.
A school’s published price tells only part of the story. Cost of attendance is supposed to capture the full yearly cost of going to school, including tuition, fees, books, supplies, transportation and living expenses. Average net price gets closer to what many families want to know: what students paid on average after grants and scholarships were subtracted.
The table below shows the data each institution submitted to the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or IPEDS. Click here if you are unable to see the table.
The difference between the cost of attendance and the net price can be significant. But even the net price does not tell every family exactly what it will owe. Depending on a student’s aid package, any remaining cost may still have to be covered through savings, work, payment plans or loans.
Those cost questions come at a time when colleges are competing for students and Alabama leaders are pushing more pathways after high school, including career and technical education, workforce credentials and alternatives to a four-year degree.
Public high school students must take the ACT as juniors and complete the federal student aid form known as the FAFSA in order to graduate, but the state has also invested heavily in programs meant to help students move into careers without necessarily earning a bachelor’s degree.
For students who do borrow for college, the consequences can last long after they leave campus.
In Alabama, about 669,000 borrowers hold $26 billion in federal student loan debt as of the end of December, according to Federal Student Aid data. About 150,000 of them – roughly one in five – are already in default, owing a combined $3.6 billion.
That share is somewhat higher than the national rate. Nationally, nearly 43 million borrowers held about $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt at the end of December. About 7.7 million of them – about 18% – were in default, owing a combined $181 billion.
Default generally means a borrower has gone more than 360 days without making payments or making repayment arrangements, which can damage credit and make it harder to borrow for cars, homes or other major purchases.
Alabama’s average defaulted balance was $23,860 per borrower, the 12th-highest average among states.