Every year, I take the 68 teams in the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament and fill out a bracket based on colleges with the lowest net price of attendance (defined as the total cost of attendance less all grant aid received). My 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 brackets are preserved for posterity—and often aren’t terribly successful on the hardwood. My 2015 winner (Wichita State) won two games in the tournament, while prior winners Fresno State (2016), Louisiana-Lafayette (2014), and North Carolina A&T (2013) emerged victorious for having the lowest net price but failed to win a single game. However, North Carolina (a Final Four selection for low-income students in 2016) did actually advance to the championship game before getting beaten by pricey Villanova.
I created two brackets this year using 2014-15 data (the most recent available through the U.S. Department of Education): one for the net price of attendance for all first-time, full-time students receiving grant aid and one focusing on students who received federal financial aid with family incomes below $30,000 per year. I should note that these net price measures are far from perfect—the data are now three years old and colleges can manipulate these numbers through the living allowance portion of the cost of attendance. Nevertheless, they provide some insights regarding college affordability—and they may not be a bad way to pick that tossup 8/9 game that you’ll probably get wrong anyway.
The final four teams in each bracket are the following, with the full dataset available here:
All students receiving grant aid
East: New Orleans ($8,867)
West: West Virginia ($10,405)
South: Northern Kentucky ($9,173)
Midwest: North Carolina Central ($9,793)
Low-income students only
East: Florida ($7,024)
West: Princeton ($3,461)
South: Northern Kentucky (5,030)
Midwest: Michigan ($3,414)
A big congratulations to the University of New Orleans for having the lowest net price for all students and to the University of Michigan for having the lowest net price for its (fairly small percentage of) low-income students. And a hearty lack of congratulations to Southern Methodist for having the highest net price for all students ($36,602) and Gonzaga for having the highest for low-income students ($30,166).
[Cross-posted at Kelchen on Education]
