News study shows how Americans pay for college

A new study from Sallie Mae digs in to find out how American families pay for college and how that has changed over the years. Researchers conducted interviews with 1,600 dependent college students and their parents and came to some interesting conclusions, including:

• Both students and parents rate the income benefits of attending college higher  (70 percent for students and 71 percent for parents) than idealism, such as achieving the American Dream (40 percent for students and 46 percent for parents).
• The number of students attending low cost two year colleges has increased from  23 percent in 2010 to 29 percent in 2012.
• 13 percent of the families surveyed did not file a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid ) because they were not aware of it.
• 39 percent of families surveyed said that they had a plan for paying for their student’s college education before they were enrolled.  Breaking it down by income level, we see that 57 percent of high income families said they had a plan compared to 37 percent of middle income families and 30 percent of low income families.

Check out the infographic below for more results. Click on the image to enlarge.