PNPI Explorer Blog – Arkansas
Welcome back to the PNPI Explorer blog series, where we examine higher education data in different states. This week’s spotlight is on Arkansas.
In 2021 in Arkansas, there were 51 institutions serving 110,897 full-time equivalent (FTE) students. By using the Explorer’s Comparison Tool, we can examine how Arkansas fares against other states in terms of college cost. At $12.5K, Arkansas has one of the lowest average net prices in the country—more than $3K less than the national average of $15.9K.
The Explorer’s College Cost report can help us parse out why Arkansas’ net price is as low as it is. While it may in part be due to low tuition and fees at Arkansas institutions (an average of $9.1K for in-state and $15.9K for out-of-state), the amount of institutional grant aid relative to the cost of attendance is also important for keeping the net price down. At non-profit institutions in Arkansas, the average tuition discount rate is 45.7%, meaning that nearly half of the cost of attendance is covered by institutional grants, on average.
Looking at the Trend Explorer, we can determine if this has always been the case or if Arkansas has changed its average tuition discount rate in the past decade. Here we see that Arkansas has consistently had a higher tuition discount rate than the national average, but this gap has started closing in recent years. There was a nearly six percentage point gap in 2011, compared to just 0.7 percentage points in 2021.
Find something interesting about Arkansas that you would like to share with us? Drop us a note via our feedback page or discuss your findings on LinkedIn! Check back next week when we explore data insights about California.
