MM Round 4: Sticker Shock

Thousands of “admissions decision reaction” videos live on YouTube, but the world still awaits a new, counterpart genre, the “parents react to total cost of attendance" collection. Shoot, why hasn't that already made its way into a reality tv series?

Sticker prices matter, because they are the starting point when every student’s that price is calculated. Sticker shock is a real thing, and the lag time between a recording year and the publication of its data is about two years. The most current aggregated cost data is from Fall of 2023.

Let's use the Elite 8 to demonstrate. More information is below--and apologies for the awkward layout. It's almost game time!

The visualization above has three views. First, all eight teams are shown with the latest total cost of attendance values we have – again, Fall ‘23. In the next view, you can choose a college, a rate of increase, and a year of entry and see the projected cost using those parameters. Finally, I provide the most recent reported rates of increase for each cohort. I do this strictly for contextual reasons, to give users an idea of what one might expect to see, in terms of cost inflation. Needless to say, these bumps will vary by year.

Plug away. As always, we want to know what you think. Please let us know at the bottom of the page.