I would like to see an analysis involving relative affordability versus change in acceptance rate. As college gets more expensive, schools that offer great financial aid may be getting more applications. Conversely, schools that don’t offer strong financial aid may be seeing a decrease in applications. For need based aid, the percentage of need met is useful to consider. For those seeking merit instead of need based aid, an analogous metric may be the amount of merit aid offered.
When we were developing a college list for D18, the first thing we did was run the NPC. If the school wasn’t affordable it dropped off the list.