The average amount families spent on higher education reached $34,019 during the 2025-26 academic year, up 10% from the previous year, as affordability increasingly shaped where students chose to enroll.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
American families spent significantly more on college during the 2025-26 academic year, with total higher education expenses rising 10% from the previous year to an estimated $34,019, according to a new Sallie Mae and Ipsos report released Wednesday.
The increase reflects far more than tuition alone. Families also paid for books, technology, housing, meals, transportation and other expenses associated with attending college, while nearly half of the overall cost came directly from family resources.
According to findings reported by Higher Ed Dive, families paid 49% of college expenses out of pocket during the academic year.
A Sallie Mae spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that interpreting the $34,019 figure strictly as a tuition increase would be misleading.
The report “finds that college spending rose but that’s not necessarily a function of higher tuition alone,” the spokesperson said.
The total “includes every dollar used towards higher education last year which is everything from tuition and fees to books, technology, meals, housing, travel, and other related expenses,” the spokesperson added.
The rising cost of attending college also appears to be playing a major role in how families decide which schools remain realistic options.
The survey found that 79% of families eliminated colleges from consideration “at multiple stages” of the selection process because of total cost, according to Higher Ed Dive.
Even with the increased financial burden, most families expressed confidence in the way they financed college.
“Families reported spending more for higher education and eight in 10 also say they are confident in how they paid for it, even if that meant stretching financially to get there,” Sallie Mae spokesperson Rick Castellano told the DCNF in a statement.
Castellano also noted that the advertised price of attendance did not necessarily reflect what many families ultimately paid.
“That said, a little more than half of families (52%), reported paying less than the full advertised sticker price for school. At the same time, misconceptions about scholarships and the FAFSA could mean families are missing out on opportunities to make college more affordable,” he said.
The findings come as broader public concern about the cost and value of higher education continues to grow. Other recent polling has found that many Americans believe colleges have become unaffordable while also failing to adequately prepare graduates for the workforce.
Multiple factors have been cited as contributors to the long-term increase in college expenses.
Administrative growth, expanded staffing, increased spending outside the classroom, campus construction and facility expansion, and sustained demand for higher education are among the factors identified by the American College of Education as drivers of rising costs.
Republican South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott has also publicly criticized the state of higher education.
In a June 12, 2025 post on X, Scott said the U.S. higher education system “is broken.”
“Americans are paying rising costs for college, while the value of their degrees continues to plummet,” Scott wrote.
The Sallie Mae/Ipsos findings were based on an online survey of 2,000 respondents, consisting of 1,000 undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 24 and 1,000 parents of traditional-age undergraduate students.
Ipsos conducted the survey from late April through late May.
Sallie Mae, formally known as SLM Corporation, is a publicly traded bank and the largest private student loan lender in the United States.
The latest report shows that families are confronting higher total college expenses while becoming increasingly selective about price, with cost now shaping school choices well before students arrive on campus.
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