A recent study shows that wealthy students increasingly are choosing to attend public universities, despite being able to afford the higher cost of private colleges and universities.
The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities reached this conclusion after analyzing data from the U.S. Department of Education based on data showing the median incomes of the families of students attending colleges and universities across the country.
The results show that, on average, students attending public schools have a higher median family income than students who attend private schools.
The median income for last year's graduating class at the University was $94,000, according to The Washington Post.
The results were not surprising to the NAICU. Large-scale surveys on the topic also were conducted in Florida, Minnesota, Oregon and California with similar results, NAICU spokesman Tony Pals said.
Brian Zucker, a consultant at Human Capital Resource Corporation, which conducted three of the state studies, said the surveys are representative of the entire nation even though it only includes the three states.
The surveys were "carefully drawn to be representative of the true cross-stitch at all institutions," Zucker said.
He said lower costs for education offered at public universities are appealing to all students, regardless of their families' income level.
"Every single year, the public-private price gap is getting larger and larger," he added. "The gap puts added pressure on a family to lean towards that choice."
Since states fund part of public universities regardless of a student's financial need, "larger appropriations of funds are going to wealthier students" even though they may not be in any need of aid, Zucker said.
But he said students are not just applying to public schools because of the cost, but also to receive the "quality of service that they want."
Low- and middle-income families make a "heroic effort [to] go above and beyond what we would have expected the family to do" to afford college, he said.
University Spokeswoman Louise Dudley said the studies show that students do not always choose a college according to their family's wealth, despite many people's perceptions.
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