MEREDITH, N.H. — As more than 2 million students who are graduating from high school all over the United States finalize their decisions on what college to attend this fall, many are encountering astonishing costs — in some instances, as high as $95,000.
Several private colleges — some seen as highly prestigious and others as average — have surpassed the $90,000 limit for the first time this year as they set their yearly expenses for tuition, housing, meals and other costs. This means a wealthy family with three kids could end up spending over $1 million by the time their youngest child finishes a four-year degree.
But the listed price doesn't reveal the whole story. Many colleges with substantial financial resources have become more committed in recent years to making college affordable for students who aren’t wealthy. Low-income families may need to pay only 10% of the advertised rate, and for some, attending a selective private college can turn out to be less costly than a public institution.
“Ninety thousand dollars clearly is a lot of money, and it catches people’s attention, for sure,” said Phillip Levine, a professor of economics at Wellesley College near Boston. “But for most people, that is not how much they’re going to pay. The existence of a very generous financial aid system lowers that cost substantially.”
Wellesley is among the colleges where the costs for wealthy students will exceed $90,000 for the first time this fall, with an estimated price tag of $92,000. But the institution points out that nearly 60% of its students will receive financial aid, and the average amount of that aid is more than $62,000, reducing their costs by two-thirds.
But many prospective students this year are facing significant delays and anxiety in finding out how much aid they will be offered by colleges due to major problems with the rollout of a new U.S. Department of Education online form that was supposed to make applying for federal aid easier. Many colleges rely on information from the form for determining their own aid offers to students.
“The rollout has been pure chaos and an absolute disaster,” said Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid expert.
Aside from repeated delays and malfunctions, he said, there have been other issues with the new system including stricter requirements for proof of identity from parents, which is deterring thousands of eligible but undocumented parents from applying — even though their children are U.S. citizens and entitled to aid.
Kantrowitz said that if the significant drop in people applying for aid under the new system persists, it could result in lower enrollments and even force some institutions to close.
Levine said his research has shown that the amount lower-income students are paying at elite institutions has actually been declining over the past six years. But he worries that sticker shock will put off some students from even applying to institutions like Wellesley.
“People should be making educational decisions based on the actual cost they have to pay, not their perceived cost,” Levine said. “The problem is that the sticker price is the easiest number to know. It gets the most attention.”
Aside from Wellesley, some other colleges charging more than $90,000 this year include the University of Southern California at $95,000, Harvey Mudd College in California at $93,000, the University of Pennsylvania at $92,000, Brown University in Rhode Island at $92,000, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire at $91,000, and Boston University at $90,000.
Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sets its cost of attendance this fall at up to $91,000, but notes that the average parent contribution is just $13,000, and nearly a quarter of families pay nothing at all. Harvard's substantial student aid program is possible due to its endowment worth over $50 billion, the largest of any university.
The sticker prices may not always be directly comparable because some colleges include expenses like health insurance and travel, while others do not. Additionally, some colleges that had prices close to $90,000 last year, such as Columbia University in New York and the University of Chicago, have not yet disclosed this year's expected costs.
According to the College Board's most recent analysis, the average advertised costs for private nonprofit colleges last year were $60,000, compared to about $29,000 for students at public in-state institutions and $47,000 at public out-of-state institutions.
Kantrowitz stated that the average unmet need for students at four-year colleges is about $10,000 per year.
“Families are therefore compelled to borrow that money or find it from another source, in addition to their share of college costs,” he said.
So is college a good investment?
Kantrowitz believes the answer is yes, as long as students borrow responsibly and finish their studies.
“If you graduate and don’t amass an excessive amount of debt, you should be able to repay that debt within a reasonable timeframe,” Kantrowitz said. “But if you drop out, you will have the debt without the degree that could help you pay it off.”
