It’s no secret that college tuition is expensive and that rising student debt is a real economic problem. Not everyone is paying full price for a college education, though. In fact, a vast majority are paying below the advertised price.

By way of NPR.org, the National Association of College and University Business Officers conducted a study “of tuition discounts at private, nonprofit, four-year colleges and universities.”

The information released in the survey suggests that all colleges that were surveyed offered some sort of discounts to its students.

“They estimate 89 percent of first-time, full-year freshmen received some kind of discount in 2014-2015. Of those students, the average grant they received is estimated to cover 54.3 percent of tuition and fees.”

That’s at least half off of student fees and maybe tuition.

Still–even with the steep discounts, it’s not enough to curb the rising rate of students who carry too much debt. At least this survey doesn’t go into detail as to how these discounts may offset the full cost of college or how it impacts the load of debt that students carry post graduation.

While the study is a brief overture into how some schools attend to the full cost of college, it also shows just how expensive some schools are if nearly 90 percent of freshmen are able to utilize discounts. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a college system that was just plain affordable for all students, without the trappings of all these discounts and needing to spend so much time tracking down the money to attend?