MEREDITH, N.H. — As more than two million high school students from across the United States finalize their decisions about which college to attend this fall, many are faced with staggering costs — in some cases as much as $95,000.
A number of private colleges — some considered elite and others mid-tier — crossed the $90,000 threshold for the first time this year as they set their annual costs for tuition, room and board, meals and other expenses. That means a wealthy family with three children could spend more than $1 million by the time their youngest child graduates from a four-year college.
But the sticker price only tells part of the story. Many colleges with large endowments have become more focused in recent years on making college affordable for students who are not wealthy. Lower-income families may be required to pay as little as 10% of the advertised rate, and for some, attending a selective private university may be cheaper than a state institution.
“Ninety thousand dollars is obviously a lot of money, and it certainly gets people’s attention,” said Phillip Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College near Boston. “But for most people, that’s not how much they spend. The existence of a very generous financial aid system significantly reduces those costs.”
Wellesley is among the colleges where 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, cutting their costs by two-thirds.
But many prospective students are facing significant delays and anxiety this year in figuring out how much aid they will be offered by colleges because of major problems with the rollout of a new online form from the U.S. Department of Education that should make applying for federal aid easier to make. . Many colleges rely on the information from the form to determine their own aid offerings to students.
“The rollout has been pure chaos and an absolute disaster,” said Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid expert.
In addition to repeated delays and problems, he said, there have been other problems with the new system, including stricter parental ID requirements, which is preventing thousands of eligible undocumented parents from applying — even though their children US citizens. and right to assistance.
Kantrowitz said if the significant decline in the number of people applying for aid under the new system continues, it could result in lower enrollments and even the closure of some institutions.
Levine said his research has shown that the amount lower-income students pay to elite institutions has actually declined over the past six years. But he worries that sticker shock will deter some students from even applying to institutions like Wellesley.
“People should make education decisions based on the actual costs they have to pay, not their perceived costs,” Levine said. “The problem is that the sticker price is the easiest number to figure out. It gets the most attention.”
In addition to Wellesley, some of the other colleges with sticker prices over $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 for $91,000, and Boston University for $90,000.
Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, estimates the cost of attendance this fall at $91,000, but points out that the average parental contribution is only $13,000, and nearly a quarter of families pay nothing at all. Harvard can afford a particularly generous student aid program because it has an endowment worth more than $50 billion, the largest of any university.
Sticker prices don’t always provide an apples-to-apples comparison because some colleges include costs such as health insurance and travel expenses, while others do not. And some colleges that had sticker prices of nearly $90,000 last year, including Columbia University in New York and the University of Chicago, have yet to announce this year’s projected costs.
In its most recent analysis, the College Board estimated that the average advertised cost for private nonprofit colleges was $60,000 last year, compared with about $29,000 for students at in-state public institutions and $47,000 at out-of-state public institutions.
Kantrowitz said the average unmet need for students at four-year colleges is about $10,000 per year.
“So families are forced to borrow that money or get that money from another source, and that’s on top of their share of college costs,” he said.
Is studying a good investment?
Kantrowitz believes the answer is yes, as long as students borrow moderately and complete their studies.
“If you graduate and don’t take on ridiculous debt, you should be able to repay that debt in a reasonable amount of time,” Kantrowitz said. “But if you stop, you have the debt, but not the degree that can help you repay the debt.”
