Colleges are increasingly hard up for students so they make a lot of promises they don’t keep. In this episode, GBH’s Kirk Carapezza and Jon Marcus of the Hechinger Report talk with students, economists and industry experts about what you need to know before handing over that giant tuition deposit.

And it all starts with how much college will cost. Although it’s one of the biggest lifetime investments a person can make, most consumers don’t know what they’ll ultimately spend on a degree. Colleges overwhelmingly do not disclose – or simply understate – how much families will pay. They tie themselves in knots to avoid using the word “loan” even when students need one.

Most freshmen think they’ll graduate with bachelor’s degrees within four years, but that’s not usually true. More than half will take more than four years, further increasing the cost. Good luck finding this out, though; thanks to lobbying by colleges, the graduation rate reported by the government represents the proportion of students who finish in six or eight years, not four.

Colleges aren’t entirely honest about what a diploma gets you either. While they boast that most graduates are gainfully employed, colleges know the whereabouts of less than half of alumni. Forty-four percent to be precise.

Getting a degree still pays off, especially considering that people who have one earn $18,000 a year more by the middle of their careers than someone with a high school diploma.

But this misinformation contributes to the fact that many Americans with college educations are underemployed and working in restaurants and as coffee baristas. It’s no wonder that only about a third of Americans say they have a lot of confidence in higher education.

“College Uncovered” is made possible by Lumina Foundation.

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Credits:

Hosts: Kirk Carapezza & Jon Marcus

Supervising Editor: Megan Woolhouse

Editor: Jeff Keating

Executive Producer: Ellen London 

Mixing and Sound Design: David Goodman & Gary Mott

Theme Song and original music: Left-Roman

Artwork: Matt Welch 

Project Manager: Meiqian He

Consulting Producer and Head of GBH Podcasts: Devin Maverick Robins

"College Uncovered" is a production of GBH News and The Hechinger Report.