Nearing six figures, high sticker price at some colleges is something to be worried about, according to expert!
According to data from The Princeton Review’s “The Best 389 Colleges” list, eight of them, including New York University, Tufts, Brown, Yale, and Washington University in St. Louis, have a sticker price exceeding $90,000 for the 2024-2025 academic year.
If tuition continues to rise at an average rate of about 4% annually, some of these institutions could charge over $100,000 per year by 2026, as estimated in 2023 by Bryan Alexander, a senior scholar at Georgetown Universityy.
This kind of price tag “can discourage students from seeing that [college] as a place they can attend, despite grant aid. These costs are simply unaffordable”, said Sameer Gadkaree, president of the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit focused on making college more affordable.
The increase in tuition prices is partly due to significant cuts in state funding for higher education, which have shifted more of the financial burden onto students, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C. Gadkaree notes that this trend is concerning. However, he pointed out that the most expensive colleges represent only a small fraction of higher education institutions.
“The vast majority of colleges are open-access community colleges or state universities where the prices are not that high”, he said.
What Families Actually Pay for College
According to Sallie Mae’s annual “How America Pays for College” report, the average amount families actually spent on college in the 2023-2024 academic year was $28,409. The report was based on a survey of 1,000 parents of undergraduate students and 1,000 undergraduate students aged 18 to 24, conducted in the spring.
Nearly half of college expenses are covered by parents’ income and savings, while scholarships and grants account for more than a quarter of costs. Student loans make up the majority of the remaining expenses.
The U.S. Department of Education provides approximately $120 billion each year to assist students with higher education costs. In addition to federal aid, students may qualify for financial help from their state, college, or private scholarships. To access this financial aid, students need to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which is essential for receiving federal grants, loans, and work-study funds.
This year, technical issues with the new FAFSA discouraged many students and their families from completing the application. As of August 9, FAFSA submissions had decreased by nearly 10% compared to the previous year, according to the National College Attainment Network (NCAN).