Kudos to Purdue U. and Williams College

by Andrew Gillen

The Chronicle reports that Purdue University and Williams College have developed calculators to help students predict the net price they'll have to pay to attend. Kudos to them.

In another 2 years, all colleges will have to do this, which is better than nothing, but what's with the 2 year wait? I understand that forecasting is difficult so I'll cut them a bit of slack. But why aren't schools releasing the actual net prices for current and past students. That's something they could be doing now (they should already be using this information internally, and unless their systems are terribly designed [in which case why are we trusting them with the much more complicated task of educating our children], it shouldn't take more than a day or two of a bean counter's time).