Did you go to college (or, if you’re a snob, “university”)?
If you did, who paid for your tuition? Were your parents able to take on a second mortgage and foot the bill for your four … or five… year stint? Did you cover the cost yourself?
Student loans are awful, there’s no doubt about it. But have you ever wondered if maybe you had attended a different, lower priced, school to get the same degree, that having that extra cushion of money available would have made a difference in your post-collegiate life?
There are two ways to look at how expensive college tuition can be: are you attending an in-state public university, where locals get a little bit of a discount when compared to their out-of-state applicants? Or is cost no matter to you, and you just want to attend the university you want to attend, regardless of the cost?
US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT HAS THIS LIST of the Top Ten Highest In-State Tuitions for Public Universities:
- University of Pittsburgh, $17,100
- Pennsylvania State University, $16,992
- University of New Hampshire, $16,496
- Maine Maritime Academy, $16,490
- Colorado School of Mines, $16,485
- University of Vermont, $15,718
- College of William and Mary, $15,464
- University of Illinois, $15,258
- New Jersey Institute of Technology, $15,140
- Pennsylvania College of Technology, $14,940
But if going to a public school isn’t enough for you — if you REALLY want the Gold Standard of education that a full-cost private school can bring you, perhaps you should look at one of these 10 MOST EXPENSIVE COLLEGES:
- Sarah Lawrence College, $61,236
- New York University, $59,337
- Harvey Mudd College, $58,913
- Columbia University, $58,742
- Wesleyan University, $58,502
- Claremont McKenna College, $58,065
- Dartmouth, $57,996
- Parsons the New School for Design, $57,910
- Johns Hopkins University, $57,820)
- University of Chicago, $57,711
So… is paying almost a quarter of a million dollars (retail cost) for a four-year education at Sarah Lawrence worth what a $70,000 price tag at University of Pittsburgh can be to an aspiring college student? That’s a lot of money that could be used to, oh… buy a home at 23 years old?
Something to think about as you put together your future financial plan, isn’t it?