Dive Brief:

• The average grant amount for full-time students attending college dips after their freshman year, both for public and private non-profit schools, as does the percentage of students receiving grants.
• Lower grants and fewer grants for non-freshmen exposes a key flaw with college net price calculators, which examine the first-year student cost, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
• The dip in grant aid also suggests that some colleges are guilty of offering a “teaser rate” to entice students to enroll and then hitting those students, once they’ve committed, with higher prices.

Dive Insight:

The bait-and-switch pricing model shows some colleges are taking advantage of a shift in the balance of power between student and institution, after the student is attending the school, partly because transferring is difficult and expensive. The average grant amount for full-time freshmen at public colleges is $7,913, compared to $7,098 for other undergraduates. For private schools, the averages are $18,088 for freshmen and $15,246 for others. The Chronicle article also offers a sampling of averages for some colleges and universities, with significant differences between their grants for first-year students and other students.