U.S. higher education costs have surged over the past year, according to a Sallie Mae/Ipsos report out Wednesday.
The new report found that total college costs for families climbed to an estimated $34,019 during the 2025-26 academic year, marking a 10% rise from the year prior, Higher Ed Dive reported. Meanwhile, U.S. families had to pay out of pocket for 49% of those education costs.
A Sallie Mae spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the new report “finds that college spending rose but that’s not necessarily a function of higher tuition alone.” The spokesperson added that the $34,019 total spent during the 2025-26 academic year “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 poll also shows that price was a key factor for students selecting a college, Higher Ed Dive reported. Of families surveyed, 79% counted out colleges “at multiple stages” while making decisions due to their total price.
“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. “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.”
The report’s release comes after other recent polling has suggested that many Americans think U.S. colleges are not doing a sufficient enough job of preparing students to enter the workforce and believe higher education has become unaffordable.
Additionally, some major drivers of surging college costs across the nation include administrative expansion, increased staffing levels, a rise in non-instructional spending, campus facilities being expanded and overall heightened demand for higher education, according to the American College of Education.
Republican South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott asserted in a June 12, 2025 X post that 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 continued.
Sallie Mae, officially known as the SLM Corporation, is a publicly traded bank that is the largest lender of private student loans in the U.S.
Ipsos surveyed 1,000 undergraduate students aged 18-24 and 1,000 parents of traditional-age undergraduate students via an online survey conducted between late April and late May.
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