DISPATCH · №001

Dispatches from the front lines of the college-decision war.

ublic data, reported back to the people it's about. FREOPP earnings; IPEDS costs; BEA regional adjustments. The manipulation that defaults teens into six-figure debt is not invisible — it's just unflattered. We do the flattery in reverse.

From dispatch №2 · 2026-05-09

College got cheaper. For 81% of schools, in real dollars.

80.8% 19.2%
raised total cost less than CPI inflation, 2020-23 · raised cost faster than CPI

2,224 four-year U.S. colleges reporting cost data for both 2020-21 and 2023-24. Median public +8.6% · median private nonprofit +9.6% · CPI cumulative ~18%.

IPEDS 2023-24 IC_AY + BLS CPI-U

The discourse says college keeps getting more expensive. The IPEDS file says otherwise — for four out of every five four-year colleges, real-dollar cost fell 2020-23. Sticker price rose; inflation rose faster. One dispatch per week, this kind of finding. No villains. No prescriptions. Just the math.

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One dispatch per week. Public-data reportage on a teen-financial decision someone is already trying to make: a FREOPP cohort that's quietly negative; a multi-year IPEDS trend hiding inside a sticker price; a BEA cost-of-living gap nobody told you would matter; a reader's letter; a straight-talk explainer of a confusing piece of the financial-aid machine. Sometimes it's a school you'd never have looked at twice. Sometimes it's the one you were sure was worth it.

Tone calibrates for the audience you tag at signup: dispatches for teens read as smart 17-year-old who reads; for parents, parent of a teen making a real decision. Same underlying data, different angle of fire.