Contrary to everything you’ve ever heard about higher education, the cost of going to college is slowly dropping. While eye-watering sticker price increases at top schools have stolen headlines and triggered a cacophony of grumblings about “the state of things,” the actual price students pay to get a bachelor’s degree has gone down over the last decade, according to a report released last week from the College Board.

The numbers: Once you factor in inflation and grants awarded to students, the average net cost of tuition and fees for an in-state freshman attending a four-year public university was $2,480 for the 2024–2025 school year—a 40% drop from $4,140 in 2014–2015.

• About half of the students who graduated last year finished their degrees without debt, compared to two-fifths of graduates in 2013.
• Private school tuition has declined by 12% in the last decade.
• The average net price for a year of private college post-financial aid awards was around $16,510 this year, compared to $18,680 during the school year beginning in 2014.

What happened? With more colleges competing for a smaller pool of prospective students, schools have been forced to tamp down tuition. More state and federal funding flowing into universities following the 2008 financial crisis hasn’t hurt, either. Plus, many colleges got an extra Covid-era boost in funds.

Still not cheap

In an effort to avoid sounding like the Lucille Bluth banana meme, it’s important to note that, yes, college is still expensive. For every $1,000 spent by US households last year, $12 of it went to college tuition alone, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis. And these costs don’t include room and board or hidden costs like textbooks.

Bottom line: The report is a (dim and maybe flickering) ray of light in the gloomy narrative of unaffordable higher ed.—MM

OpenAI launched a ChatGPT search engine. The new feature, appropriately named ChatGPT Search, went live for paid ChatGPT Plus and Team users yesterday and will launch for free and enterprise users in the coming weeks. It allows users to search the web in real time like they would with Google or other search engines, but OpenAI boasts that it’s free of ads and can answer more conversational queries than its rivals. OpenAI, which closed a new funding round at a $157 billion valuation last month, has partnered with several news publishers to bolster its search feature. Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini already allow users to get up-to-date information from the internet.

Comcast might spin off its cable TV networks. The company’s president, Mike Cavanagh, told reporters on an earnings call that the media giant is considering creating a separate company for its roster of cable channels—which includes CNBC, MSNBC, USA Network, and Bravo—to reignite a pay-TV industry that’s hemorrhaging viewers. Cavanagh also said Comcast is looking at adding a partner for its Peacock streaming service to help it grow. The service has 36 million subscribers, well short of streaming leader Netflix’s 283 million. Per the Hollywood Reporter, Paramount+ and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max are two potential options to join forces with Peacock.

Apple hinted at how the iPhone 16 is doing. The smartphone giant released a critical earnings report yesterday as investors awaited any morsel of information about how the new iPhone 16 was selling. The early verdict: pretty good. Apple sold a better-than-expected ~$46 billion worth of iPhones last quarter, up 6% from the year before and a signal that the iPhone 16—which launched on Sept. 20—is off to a solid start. Sales of the iPhone 15 were “stronger than 14 in the year-ago quarter, and 16 was stronger than 15,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC. The rest of the earnings report, however, was a mixed bag. Services revenue came in under estimates, and net income underwhelmed after Apple had to pay a one-time $10.2 billion charge to Ireland for back taxes.—AE

Hold on to your crumpet: The UK’s newly elected Labour government revealed its highly anticipated fiscal plan this week, which aims to kick off long-term growth and decrease mounting debt as the country struggles—along with much of the rest of Europe—to find economic harmony.

Rachel Reeves, the first female chancellor of the exchequer, is focused on jumpstarting the British economy—most significantly by raising $52 billion in taxes, the largest increase in a generation, to make up for the £22 billion “black hole” that the previous government left. (Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said this claim was unconfirmed.) Her plan comes as Britain’s European neighbors struggle to find their footing:

• The French government announced austerity plans earlier this month to address a harrowing deficit described as one of the worst in Europe.
• Germany, which narrowly escaped a recession with 0.2% GDP growth this year, has dramatically cut spending. Volkswagen, a symbol of Germany’s economic power, announced this week that it will close at least three manufacturing plants.

Zoom out: Europe’s economic powerhouses aren’t what they used to be, and the words “US hegemony” are ringing in foreign policymakers’ ears louder than they have in a while. Just yesterday, new data showed the US economy grew at 2.8% last quarter, reaffirming that the country accomplished a successful soft landing while its friends across the pond stayed flailing.—CC

Super Micro, a leading hardware provider for Nvidia and other top AI players, is super flopping: The company’s stock buckled this week after announcing that auditor Ernst & Young resigned mid-job, worsening concerns about the accuracy of Super Micro’s finances.

Past its peak? For a time, Super Micro rode the generative AI boom even harder than Nvidia. It spiked 2,000% in the two years leading up to March, when it made it to the S&P 500. Since then, its market cap has collapsed from a high of nearly $70 billion to below $20 billion—with about $10 billion of that loss happening this week after EY’s resignation.

Charting the decline: Notorious short-seller Hindenburg Research alleged “accounting manipulation” at Super Micro in August, and the Wall Street Journal revealed a Justice Department probe into Super Micro in September.

Roasted: This week, EY questioned Super Micro’s “integrity and ethical values,” according to an SEC filing. The firm said it couldn’t trust the company’s self-reporting and wasn’t willing to associate with Super Micro’s financial statements. Super Micro knocked the decision and said addressing EY’s concerns wouldn’t change any previously reported earnings.

Looking ahead…the tech company has to file its overdue annual report by Nov. 16 or possibly get booted from the Nasdaq.—ML

The only person who hates to see a Will Smith coming more than a New York Yankee is Chris Rock on Oscars night. For the fifth consecutive season, someone named Will Smith has won the World Series, following the Los Angeles Dodgers’ defeat of the Yankees this week. LA catcher Will Smith also won with the team in 2020, while the pitcher Will Smith—who is a separate person from both the Dodgers’ Smith and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air—improbably won with three different teams in 2021, 2022, and 2023, respectively. Yankees fans can take solace in the fact that it doesn’t matter that superstar Aaron Judge disappeared in the World Series, or that the team had an epic meltdown on Wednesday night to hand the Dodgers the title, for their fate was written the moment a Will Smith came to town.—AE

Getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to when the Reese’s doesn’t leave any skid marks.

It’s that satisfying. Ace the quiz.