This—if the story doesn’t mention this point, that’s a pretty egregious omission. A lot of students and parents don’t look at private schools because of sticker shock, despite many of them having significant financial aid and often free rides based on need.
I don't think it mentioned that, but I was doing other things while listening and may have missed it. It really focused on what changes were made to loan programs and what should people who have loans or are getting loans this year consider
And I’m not sure the story doesn’t make this point, just basing on a short summary. But yeah, I see “private = pricey” and so not even consider them beliefs in a lot of my kids’ high school friends, so I try to push back on this if it comes up.
Also why on the site I made to compare colleges (made for my kids, but broadly useful) I show average net price for students on aid and cost compared to “expensive” Harvard rather than list price (collegetables.info). I might break price down by income brackets (fed data has this).
I benefited from a full aid package at my second college, myself! And when I talk about this with my friends with kids approaching college age, most have no idea.