Finally tonight: navigating the maze of questions surrounding the cost of college. This week, many students are getting their final college acceptance notices. That's exciting. But now comes the crunch: calculating the potential costs and deciding what they can really afford. Hari is back with a conversation on what students and families need to know. Total student debt in the U.S. is estimated to be more than $ 1 trillion. Roughly 70 percent of college graduates were carrying an average debt load of $29,000 for the most recent year studied, and default rates are rising. NPR is doing a month long project called saying for College. And here to help shed some light on all this is education reporter Claudio Sanchez. He's been a key part of that. And we also get insight from Roberta Johnson, director of student financial aid at Iowa State University. She's testified before Congress on these issues. So, Claudio Sanchez, I want to start with you. Let's look at the tuition vs. the total costs or the sticker price vs. the real price. What did you find in your reporting? Are families aware of the difference? Most often, they are not. And the sticker price, of course, is what everybody is scared by. But if you take a look at the typical family that is sending a kid in state to a good public institution, what we found was that there has been an enormous increase in tuition. Since 1980, tuition increases have been about 1000 ?have risen 1200 percent. That's pretty outrageous, certainly in the view of parents who these days are struggling even more,
