RESEARCH & INSIGHTS | POSTSECONDARY AFFORDABILITY
Mapping the College Affordability Landscape: A Typology of State Strategies
States use a wide range of policies and programs to make higher education more affordable. But understanding how these efforts fit together—and whether they support broader state goals—can be challenging.
OCTOBER 2026
Mapping the College Affordability Landscape: A Typology of State Strategies offers a comprehensive framework for examining how states approach affordability. Through a national analysis and 51 individual profiles covering all 50 states and Washington, DC, the research identifies the strategies states use, how they target them, and patterns across state affordability systems.
We reveal a broader view of college affordability: States should approach affordability as a system—not a collection of individual strategies.
The typology catalogs states' efforts across four groups of strategies, offering a more complete picture of state affordability policy than looking at tuition prices or financial aid programs along.
Financial Benefits - Resources that help students pay
Price-Setting - Approaches that influence prices
Policy - Broader affordability policies
Time to Degree - Strategies that support timely completion
The typology shows not just what states do, but who and what their strategies target, examining both institutional sectors and student characteristics including financial need, merit, age, residency, and enrollment intensity. These insights give policymakers a new way to hold up a mirror to their state’s affordability system and ask: Is the system we have built actually aligned with what we are trying to accomplish?
Explore State Affordability Profiles
Explore your state's approach to college affordability through its State Profile. Select your state from the map below, or use the dropdown menu and click “View Profile.” Each profile provides a snapshot of the strategies a state uses across four strategy groups, including its level of focus in each area and how strategies are targeted to different students and institutions.
For a deeper understanding of the findings across states, read the full report, Mapping the College Affordability Landscape: A Typology of State Strategies, review our methodology, and explore the data summary tables.
Find Your State. Explore its Approach to College Affordability.
Select a state below to view its PDF profile or use the dropdown menu below. To view Washington DC, please use the drop down menu and select District of Columbia.
Additional Resources
About This Research
This research was developed by HCM Strategists to support a more comprehensive understanding of state college affordability systems and inform strategic conversations about how states can improve access, affordability, and student success.
The typology and accompanying resources are intended to help policymakers, researchers, and higher education stakeholders examine existing strategies, identify opportunities for greater coherence, and consider how affordability policies align with broader state priorities.
Questions about the research or interested in applying the framework in your state? Contact HCM Strategists.
Authors: Will Carroll, Tom Allison, Brenae Smith, Victoria Griffin. (October 2026). Mapping the College Affordability Landscape: A Typology of State Strategies. HCM Strategists.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the Lumina Foundation for its generous support of this project. Lumina’s ongoing efforts to expand educational access and opportunity provide important momentum for this work.
We thank Madeline Price, Martha Snyder, Nicole Brown, Sukai Kato-Hopkins, Satra Taylor, and Takeshi Yanagiura for their contributions to this project. We are also thankful to our state partners for their thoughtful feedback and engagement, which helped us refine and strengthen our analysis.