Hill, Catharine B., Gordon C. Winston, and Stephanie A. Boyd. 2005. “Affordability: Family Incomes and Net Prices at Highly Selective Private Colleges and Universities.” Journal of Human Resources 40(4): 769-790.

Working from the financial aid records of individual students at 28 highly selective private colleges and universities, we were able to calculate both the price the low-income students at these schools actually pay for a year’s education, net of financial aid grants, and how the schools differentiate net price in recognition of their students’ different family incomes—their pricing policies.

Catharine B. Hill is the John J. Gibson Professor of Economics and Provost at Williams College. Gordon C. Winston is the Orrin Sage Professor of Political Economy Emeritus and the Director of the Williams Project on the Economics of Higher Education. Stephanie A. Boyd is a research associate at Williams College. The authors want to thank the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its continuing support of the Williams Project on the Economics of Higher Education. For this study, in addition, burdens of money and effort were borne by a grant from the Williams President’s Office, the COFHE staff, especially Kay Hanson, and the 28 individual colleges and universities that provided financial aid records. Paul Boyer’s advice made possible both the earlier Williams study (Hill and Winston 2005) and this one. Presentations at COFHE seminars at Northwestern, Georgetown, and Rice gave us important insights as did presentation of the authors’ evolving findings to the Williams Economics Department and the Williams Project. Kristine Dillon, Tony Broh, Larry Litten, Kathleen Kern Bowman, Morty Schapiro, Dave Zimmerman, MiHye Kim, Adam Sischy, Preston Hillman, Andrew Thomison, and Michelle Waryjasz were especially helpful. The data used in this article were made available through the Consortium for the Financing of Higher Education from the individual COFHE schools. The authors will aid other scholars who wish to pursue the data.