Costs and Financial Aid. The cost of attendance is the total amount of tuition, fees, room and board, books, supplies, and other estimated school expenses. Financial aid is a combination of grants, loans, scholarships, and work-study employment designed to help offset the total cost of attendance.
One of the major problems for an investor looking at that 10% average return figure and mistakenly expecting to realize a nice yearly profit from investing in the S&P 500 is inflation. Adjusted for inflation, the historical average annual return is only around 7%.
Average Investor 20 Year Return Astoundingly Awful. NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- The average investor's 20 year annualized return is astounding simply because of how awful it was. According to an analysis by Dalbar, the average investor earned 2.1% over the twenty year period ended Dec. 31, 2011.