But they're not making a specific claim. They're making a generalized claim to tell the story. Any one individual student should be able to compare their financial situation to the generalizations in the article.
The final sentence of the article is this:
How on earth do colleges today ramp up costs to $40,000 a year?
And in fact, scholarships, grants and other subsidies would be but one part of the explanation for why costs are high. Just because a student might not pay $40,000 because he gets $10,000 in merit scholarships and need-based gov't and 3rd party grants, doesn't mean the cost of that degree still isn't $40,000.
>But they're not making a specific claim. They're making a generalized claim to tell the story.
"Consider this: You have just paid about three times as much for your degree as did someone graduating 30 years ago. That’s in constant dollars — in other words, after accounting for inflation. [...] According to the College Board, in 1983 a typical private American university managed to provide a bachelor’s-degree-level education to young people just like you for $11,000 a year in tuition and fees. That’s in 2012 dollars."
It's not meant to be taken literally. It's just part of the narrative. It's blatantly obvious that the author can't actually know how much his readers have actually paid for their tuition. In fact the audience for this article is probably not even recent graduates.
The final sentence of the article is this:
How on earth do colleges today ramp up costs to $40,000 a year?
And in fact, scholarships, grants and other subsidies would be but one part of the explanation for why costs are high. Just because a student might not pay $40,000 because he gets $10,000 in merit scholarships and need-based gov't and 3rd party grants, doesn't mean the cost of that degree still isn't $40,000.