College Guide
Blog
A common criticism many colleges have about the way Americans talks about college pricing is that so much of the media discussion is about sticker price. Tuition at George Washington University is $42,860 a year! Tuition at Sarah Lawrence is $59,170 a year. With numbers like that, it looks like parents and students are essentially buying a new Jaguar ever year.
But, universities point out, that number doesn’t actually reflect what every student has to pay. Many students pay far less.It’s the net price that really matters.
Well here’s what’s really going on. The New York Times has done the math and put together a ranking of American colleges based on what students really pay, the net price.
Here are the 20 most expensive (private) colleges in America:
Here are the 20 cheapest (public) ones:
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is America’s most expensive college.
These are probably the more important schools to look at as far as college pricing goes. The sticker price is more about symbolism.
Facebook
Twitter
Crissa on April 16, 2012 8:06 PM:
I'm not sure what this says, aside from exclusive colleges aren't as exclusive as we thought.
I notice several medical and technical schools on the list - including the one I went to - which have high capital costs that can't be avoided, hence not handing out many scholarships or discounts.
Snarki, child of Loki on April 16, 2012 10:01 PM:
Both Drexel and Northeastern are co-op schools, where students alternate between taking classes for a part of the year and working in their field (for pay) for the rest of the year.
I'm not sure how one *should* count income from co-op jobs, but I think most families count it an offset against tuition. It's certainly not counted as a scholarship/tuition reduction by the schools, however, since it's not money that they even see.
Okay, so those are two "more complicated" cases, but I bet there are more, although it takes some digging.
Tuition's still too high, though.
David Levin on April 17, 2012 3:32 PM:
Is it odd that seven of the eight most expensive schools are all art/design/music schools (the New School's largest unit is the Parsons School of Design)?