MEREDITH, N.H. — As more than 2 million high school graduates from across the country make final decisions about which college they will attend this fall, many are faced with surprising expenses, in some cases as much as $95,000. confronting.
Many private universities (some considered elite, others middle class) will exceed the $90,000 threshold for the first time this year when setting annual costs for tuition, board, board, and other fees. Ta. That means a wealthy family with three children could expect to spend more than $1 million by the time their youngest child earns a four-year degree.
But the sticker price is only part of the story. Many universities with large endowments have focused in recent years on making college unaffordable for less affluent students. Low-income families may have to pay as little as 10% of the published rate, and for some families, attending a highly selective private university may be cheaper than a state institution.
“$90,000 is obviously a lot of money and it certainly gets people's attention,” said Philip Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College near Boston. Due to the existence of a very generous financial aid system, its costs are significantly reduced. ”
Wellesley College will be one of the first colleges this fall where tuition for wealthy students will exceed $90,000, with an estimated price tag of $92,000. But the school notes that nearly 60 percent of its students receive financial aid, which averages more than $62,000, reducing costs by two-thirds.
But many prospective students this year are having trouble finding out how much aid they'll be offered by their colleges after major problems with the rollout of the U.S. Department of Education's new online form that was supposed to make it easier to apply for federal aid. is facing significant delays and uncertainty. . Many universities rely on information from the form to determine the unique aid they offer to students.
“This development has been an utter mess, an utter disaster,” said financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz.
In addition to repeated delays and glitches, he said there are other problems with the new system, including stricter identification requirements for parents, which would prevent thousands of eligible but undocumented parents from applying. He said he was discouraged from doing so. and have the right to receive assistance.
Kantrowitz said if the significant drop in people applying for aid under the new system continues, it could lead to a drop in enrollment and even force some institutions to close.
Levine said research has shown that the amount of money low-income students pay for elite institutions has actually declined over the past six years. But he worries that sticker shock may deter some students from even applying to colleges like Wellesley.
“People should make education decisions based on the actual costs they have to pay, not on their perceived costs,” Levine said. “The problem is that the sticker price is the most obvious number. It's the one that gets the most attention.”
In addition to Wellesley, other schools with sticker prices above $90,000 this year include University of Southern California at $95,000, Harvey Mudd College in California at $93,000, University of Pennsylvania at $92,000, and Brown, Rhode Island at $92,000. Universities at $92,000, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire at $91,000, and Boston University at $90,000.
Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, charges up to $91,000 to attend this fall, but parents claim the average contribution is just $13,000, with nearly a quarter of families paying nothing at all. ing. Harvard University is able to offer a particularly generous student aid program because it has an endowment of more than $50 billion, the largest of any university.
Listed prices may not always provide an apples-to-apples comparison, as some universities include costs such as health insurance and travel expenses, while others do not. Additionally, some universities whose list prices last year were close to $90,000, such as Columbia University in New York and the University of Chicago, have not yet disclosed their expected costs this year.
In its most recent analysis, the College Board found that private nonprofit colleges spent an average of $60,000 on advertising last year, compared to about $29,000 for students at in-state public universities and about $29,000 for students at out-of-state public universities. estimated it to be about $47,000.
Kantrowitz said the average unmet need for students at four-year colleges is about $10,000 a year.
“So families are forced to borrow that money or come up with that money from other sources, and that's on top of their college costs,” he says.
So is college a good investment?
Kantrowitz believes the answer is yes, as long as students borrow in moderation to complete their studies.
“If you don't graduate with an exorbitant amount of debt, you should be able to pay it off within a reasonable amount of time,” Kantrowitz said. “But if you drop out, you have debt, but you don't get a degree that will pay off the debt.”
