The cost of college is confusing. Some schools are trying to change that

Catch up on what you missed with our Education newsletter, sent weekly.MIDDLEBURY, Vt.— Stately buildings of Vermont limestone surround meticulously tended lawns in a village that could be the setting for a Hallmark Christmas movie.Middlebury College looks … expensive.

But like other universities and colleges, it's working hard to persuade people that it's not.Middlebury has announced that students from families with household incomes up to $175,000 can enroll tuition-free.That makes it one of a growing number of colleges trying to reduce widespread public confusion about what college actually costs.These offers may seem like generous expansions of financial aid; after all, $175,000 is more than double the nation's median household income.But while it's true that a few additional families will benefit — 35 to 50 in the incoming class at Middlebury, which typically enrolls about 630 new students per year, the college says — most people from families earning $175,000 or less already attend without having to pay tuition.The real purpose of what Middlebury and other schools are doing, experts say, is to confront a problem that has soured many Americans on higher education: how frustratingly hard it is to figure out what college will cost."Let's make it as non-complicated as possible," said Ian Baucom, president at Middlebury: "If your family income is $175,000 or less, at Middlebury, you don't pay tuition." What the school is doing, he said, is trying to "just [be] really clear and get that out of the way, and then let the students decide."This includes low-income students — and young people whose parents didn't go to college — who find the price and the process of financial aid hardest to decipher, admissions officials say.Nearly 80% of families of all kinds that were considering sending a student to college eliminated a school from consideration based on the price, a survey by the student loan company Sallie Mae found.Middlebury becomes the latest of a g...