Postsecondary institutions gave over $17 billion in financial aid in 2015. This represented a 3% increase from 2014. However, the number of student receiving the financial aid declined 3% so the average financial aid per student when looked at over the entire postsecondary landscape actually increased 6%. We used data from the Tuition and Pricing Interactive to crunch the numbers which come from IPEDS. The following table shows the breakdown of the aid totals between in-state and other institutions.
The aid packages are only good if the cost increases are managed. The average net price for all institutions went up a modest 1.5-2% indicating that to be the case.