Free Version
Moderate

# College Tuition: Testing the Data

APSTAT-EJKUEL

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average total tuition, fees, room and board at 4-year colleges and universities was \$$24,706 in 2013-2014. Mr. Nye believes the average is now higher. To investigate, he randomly selects one 4-year school from each of the 50 states. He finds the sample average to be \$$25,322$and the sample standard deviation to be \$$2,375. There are no outliers in his data. Does his data provide evidence at the \alpha = 0.05 level that the average total tuition, fees, room and board at 4-year​ colleges has increased? A No, the p-value for the appropriate significance test is 0.07. Since 0.07 > 0.05, we do not have sufficient evidence at the \alpha = 0.05 level. B No, the sample average is only \$$616$ more than the 2013-2014 value. Considering that costs are more than \20,000$, this is really not that much money. C Yes, the$p$-value for the appropriate significance test is$0.04$, so we have strong evidence to suggest that the cost has increased. D Yes, the sample average represents a$2.5\%$increase over the 2013-2014 costs. Since this is less than$5\%$, our results are statistically significant at the$\alpha = 0.05\$ level.

E

Mr. Nye cannot conduct a significance test here since not all conditions are satisfied.