College tuitions and housing prices vary wildly, many students live with family, many students have merit based scholarships. Many states have copied Georgia and have lottery funded scholarships that covers the majority of in state tuition for students with a B average in high school.

>Or, more likely, the stats are collected poorly as they typically are.

The stats are widely available along with the data collection methodology. If you want to stick with your confirmation bias that's fine I suppose.