As students around the country are leaving behind their studies and moving on to summer jobs, backpacking trips around Europe or auditions for the next installment of Survivor, we here at Hands Off the Internet are getting back to our studies — or in this case, a study by the American Consumer Institute called “Net Neutrality and the Effects on Consumers.” You can read the whole thing in PDF format.

The bottom line: “restrictions on price, product and service differentiation would result in higher prices for lower income broadband consumers, which would result in significantly lower industry demand and revenue, deterring investments in next generation network and reducing consumer welfare.”

In short, net neutrality regulations would have a negative impact on the average Internet user. Here are other findings from the summary:

This study also finds that restrictions on multi-sided market pricing would mean that consumers lose $69 billion in potential benefits over the next 10 years. In effect, net neutrality regulations would require consumers to pay all of the upgrade costs of the next generation Internet and prohibit voluntary commercial agreements that would lower consumer broadband prices.

Net Neutrality regulations would also increase the price of broadband services, because it increases the cost of the network that provides those services. Because broadband services are very price sensitive, just a $5 increase in price could lead to a 15% drop in total broadband subscribership and a 60% decline in demand for lower-income, price sensitive consumers. In summary, this study finds that Internet regulations would harm consumers and agrees with an earlier finding by the FCC1 – namely, that Internet regulations would impede investment, reduce broadband demand and raise consumer prices. In summary, net neutrality is not, by all accounts, about helping consumers.

More numbers and charts in the full study itself — unless you’re heading out to the lake or the movie theater, check it out. In fact, bring it along — it can’t be any worse than this.