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In an 11-month project, The Hechinger Report empirically tested the oft-repeated claim of universities and colleges that they are helping low-income students afford the cost of higher education. The Report analyzed federal data to determine the net price -- what students are actually charged, after discounts and financial aid are taken into account -- at thousands of colleges and universities. The Report found many schools increased the net price much faster for their lowest-income students than for wealthier ones. Sidebars also showed that federal financial aid, including tax credits and the work-study program, disproportionately benefit the rich. And in a followup, using a successive year of data later made available during 2014, The Hechinger Report reported that 100 colleges and universities that promised at a White House summit to make higher education more affordable for the lowest-income students had actually raised their prices faster for the poorest students than for wealthier ones. The project included a unique, first-of-its-kind, easy-to-use, searchable website called Tuition Tracker (tuitiontracker.org) through which readers could find any college and university and see how its net price has changed, by any of five income groupings.
