PolicyMap & National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)

< Back to list of datasets
CategoriesEducation & Childcare
DetailAverage tuition and fees (sticker price) and tuition-only costs at 4-year public, 4-year private nonprofit, and 4-year private for-profit institutions; and at 2-year public, 2-year private nonprofit, and 2-year private for-profit institutions, including both undergraduate and graduate levels where applicable
Download Availableno
GeographiesState
Last Updated on PolicyMapJune 2026
PolicyMap Exclusiveyes
Public Edition or Subscriber-onlySubscriber-only
SourcePolicyMap, NCES
Years Available2010–2011, 2011–2012, 2012–2013, 2013–2014, 2014–2015, 2015–2016, 2016–2017, 2017–2018, 2018–2019, 2019–2020, 2020–2021, 2021–2022, 2022–2023, 2023–2024

Description:

PolicyMap created estimates of the average cost of college in the United States using NCES Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data across 2-year and 4-year public, private nonprofit, and private for-profit institutions. Estimates are produced for both tuition-only and tuition-and-fees (sticker price) measures, for undergraduate and graduate levels where applicable.

For each institution category, estimates are calculated as enrollment-weighted averages using full-time enrollment, where each institution’s published tuition and/or required fees is weighted by its full-time student population so that larger institutions contribute proportionally more to the state estimate. Values reflect sticker prices only and do not account for grants, scholarships, or other forms of financial aid. Institutions with missing tuition or enrollment values are excluded from the weighting to avoid bias. State-level aggregations are displayed as “Insufficient data” when reporting coverage is incomplete.

Based on NCES IPEDS source tables: IC_AY, DRVEF, HD.
https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data