There's a huge gap between the sticker price and what the average student actually pays after figuring in grants and scholarships. Nationwide, the average sticker price is more than twice as high as the price students actually pay, and the gap is getting wider. It turns out, it makes economic sense to have a high sticker price and offer lots of discounts.
College Rankings Fail to Measure the Influence of the Institution (NY Times)
The new U.S. College Scorecard adds valuable information to the vast amount of post-secondary information available through rankings and other resources. But it suffers from many of the same flaws that afflict nearly every college ranking system: There is no way to know what, if any, impact a particular college has on its students’ earnings, or life for that matter. Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/business/new-college-rankings-dont-show-how-alma-mater-affects-earnings.html
When Choosing a College, How Should Students Gauge the Payoff? (Chronicle)
What you stand to make after college, the government is telling prospective students, ought to be a factor in how you choose that college.