Chapman has highest cost of university attendance in US, claims CTAS report

While the report includes Chapman in its report on expensive colleges, university administrators argue that the metric ignores important nuances like financial aid. Graphic by HARRY LADA, Art Director

Chapman University found itself at the forefront of a report titled “Top 20 most expensive colleges'' by CTAS Higher Business, a site that analyzes business issues within higher education. The March 22 report begins by naming the university as having the highest cost of attendance in the U.S. “to (their) knowledge,” listing $85,060 as the financial burden for Chapman’s highest-paying first year students.

Some members of the Chapman administration, like vice president and dean of enrollment Mike Pelly, feel that the report — and its reference to cost of attendance — fail to consider vital pieces of context.

“They quote ‘to (their) knowledge,’ Chapman’s (cost of attendance) is the highest, while at the same time acknowledging that the data (is) incomplete,” Pelly told The Panther in a March 29 email statement. “It’s unfortunate that they mention us because we are committed to helping families afford a Chapman education.”

For David Carnevale, Chapman’s director of undergraduate financial aid, the cost of attendance cannot be a reliable way to measure a university’s affordability since it accounts for factors outside of a school’s immediate costs.

“Cost of attendance includes both direct costs that are billed directly by the university as well as indirect costs, which are estimates of what we think you may spend in an academic year,” Carnevale wrote in a March 31 email statement to The Panther. “For example, students who are not living in campus housing still have an element for housing in their cost of attendance. Generally, housing in Orange County … can be higher (than) other areas of the country.”

Instead, Carnevale suggested that sites like College Scorecard could provide more reliable financial information on Chapman, since it accounts for grants and scholarships in the university’s average annual cost. Factoring in these forms of financial aid, the site claims the cost of attendance is more likely $41,350, which is less than half of Chapman’s estimated cost of attendance without aid.

Chapman’s statistics still remain above the midpoint annual cost of American four-year colleges at $19,202 or of all American colleges and universities at $15,388.

On top of conceding that several colleges have yet to release their cost of attendance for 2022, the CTAS report also details several reasons why cost of attendance is not “a good measure of what the average student pays,” including the fact that a large portion of the student population is not accounted for in its calculation.

A graphic included in the report lists the top 20 “most expensive” universities in the U.S. based on a different metric, “average net cost,” which was created by CTAS with the intention of avoiding various errors found in calculating a university’s cost of attendance. 

The CTAS-created metric includes “tuition, room & board, fees and estimates of supplies, less institutional aid of all kinds (including need-based and merit), and less federal and state/local aid” in its calculations, deducting financial aid from a university’s total net cost in a similar manner to College Scorecard.

Notably, Chapman is not featured in the graphic at all, with Pitzer College listed as having the average net cost of any American university. 

“Chapman wasn’t listed (in the graphic), and that’s because of the amount of financial aid and scholarships we offer,” Pelly wrote to The Panther. “In our most recent freshmen class, 87% of students received financial aid.”

Compared to California State University, Fullerton — where 80% of the freshman class in the 2019-2020 school year received financial aid, the University of Southern California — where 70% of the freshmen during this academic year had tuition assistance — and the University of California, Irvine — where this statistic is 74%, Chapman’s own numbers remain high. The institution offered aid to 89% of freshmen enrolled for the 2019-2020 school year.  

As of 2021, the reported national average of students receiving financial aid is 83.8%, which Chapman surpassed the year prior by over 5%. 

Noting the $167,000,000 given out from Chapman to students in 2022 through scholarships and grants, Carnevale told The Panther that providing financial aid for students is a significant component of Chapman’s operations. Carnevale also encouraged students to consult with resources like the Promising Futures Program or the Honors program, which may help with special costs.

“The Financial Aid Office continually identifies trends and changes to financial aid policy that may impact our students and makes recommendations on how to best handle these changes,” Carnevale said when asked about the next steps of financial aid at Chapman. “We are well prepared for the future.”