Tuition & Other Costs Exceeding $90,000 at Some US Colleges, Financial Aid to Offer Relief for Low-Income Students

Over two million high school students in the United States should soon decide which college to attend. However, this has become a challenge for them as many universities increase tuition and other expenses, some exceeding $90,000 per year.

An increasing number of private colleges, some considered prestigious institutions, have surpassed this amount for tuition, board, meals, and other costs. At least ten colleges will cost over $80,000 next year, including Brandeis University, the price tag of which will be $89,824, Erudera.com reports.

According to an Associated Press report, this means that a rich family with three children might expect to spend more than $1 million by the time their youngest child graduates from a four-year institution.

Wellesley College, a private women’s college in Massachusetts, is among the institutions with an annual tuition of $92,000 for the 2024/25 academic year. This amount includes tuition and board costs, as well as meals. Other colleges where the cost for rich students will exceed $90,000 include:

• Boston University - over $90,000
• Brown University in Rhode Island - $92,000
• Dartmouth College in New Hampshire - $91,000
• The University of Pennsylvania - $92,000
• University of Southern California - $95,000

On the other hand, many colleges have also announced initiatives to make education more affordable for children of families with low annual income, including Harvard, where 55 percent of undergraduates receive need-based scholarships. Harvard states on its website that families who earn less than $85,000 a year are not expected to pay the cost of their children’s education for the 2023/24 academic year.

Wellesley also said that for about 60 percent of students who will receive financial aid, the college cost would be reduced by two-thirds as the amount of the support is more than $62,000.

“Ninety thousand dollars clearly is a lot of money, and it catches people’s attention, for sure. 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,” Phillip Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College near Boston, told AP.

At Stanford, families who make less than $150,000 with assets typical of that income level are not obliged to pay tuition, while those with less than $100,000 pay no tuition, room, or board.

According to an analysis by the College Board, private nonprofit colleges cost an average of $60,000 last year. On the other hand, public in-state schools cost about $29,000, and public out-of-state schools cost $47,000.

While education in the United States has become more costly in the last three decades, student loan debt is also a national crisis. Student loan borrowers owe a total of $1.74 trillion in federal and private student loan debt in 2024.

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