How Do We Determine Median On-Campus Housing Costs When Formulating the Cost Of Attendance?

Effective with the 2023-24 award year, the housing component of the cost of attendance (COA) for students living in institutionally owned or operated housing (or institutionally contracted housing) must be based on the average or median amount assessed to residents, whichever is greater. The requirement applies to the housing component for both students with dependents and students without dependents living in on-campus housing (i.e., they are now separate cost components). 

Since the median is defined as the middle value in an ascending or descending list of values, the timing of the determination could affect the value of the median.

In Dear Colleague Letter GEN-22-15, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) provided the following clarification in COA-Q5:

"When determining on-campus housing costs, at what point does an institution need to establish its determination of median amounts assessed to such residents for housing charges?

Under the HEA, institutions have broad latitude when developing median costs associated with residential housing. Institutions should develop and document any reasonable methods used to support median costs including the date they determined the median costs. Median costs could be based on prior year data, current year estimates, or some other reasonable methodology consistently applied to all appropriate students."

See AskRegs Q&A, How Do We Determine the On-Campus Housing Allowance? (Award Year: 2023-24), for more considerations when calculating the on-campus housing allowance, including median costs.

Note: Effective with the 2023-24 award year, the COA component for “room and board” has been renamed "living expenses." "Room" has been renamed "housing" and "board" has been renamed "food."

See Section 472(a)(5) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), as amended, [20 USC 1087LL(a)(5)]