Obama’s college-cost website pulls back the veil on N.J. tuitions

By Kathleen O’Brien/The Star-Ledger

You know college costs are out of whack when they are center stage in the State of the Union address.

President Obama used that occasion to announce a new federal website designed to pull the curtain back on some of the mysteries of college finances. The “College Scorecard” (whitehouse.gov/scorecard) focuses on real-world costs, not the “sticker price” that gets the headlines.

Yes, tuition, room and board at Princeton now tops $50,000 a year. But thanks to the College Cost Scorecard website, we now know the typical family pays just $18,813 — placing its actual cost in the “high” category, yet squarely in the middle of the rest of New Jersey colleges and universities.

“More information is better than not,” said Robert Franek, lead author of the Princeton Review’s book, “Best Values Colleges.” He praised the website’s clear design, but wished it had some way for users to make side-by-side comparisons.

The website lists only a handful of essential stats for each school: typical cost; the percent change from 2007 to 2009; the percentage of full-time students who graduate after six years; the percent of students who default on their loans; and the average monthly loan repayment.

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