The ranks of the most expensive colleges have grown again: 100 institutions are charging $50,000 or more for tuition, fees, room, and board in 2010-11, according to a Chronicle analysis of data released last week by the College Board. That’s well above the 58 universities and colleges that charged that much in 2009-10, and a major jump from the year before, when only five colleges were priced over $50,000.
This year marks a milestone as the first public institution has joined that elite club: the University of California at Berkeley is charging out-of-state residents $50,649 for tuition, fees, room, and board. (The price for in-state residents is only $27,770.)
All of the other 99 colleges charging $50,000 or more are private. They made up 9 percent of the 1,058 private institutions reporting any amount for tuition, fees, room, and board.
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To be sure, many students at the most-expensive institutions are paying significantly less than the sticker price, thanks to financial aid. Net prices, including financial aid, are not available by institution for 2010-11. But the College Board estimates that the average net price for tuition, fees, room, and board at private, four-year colleges has fallen slightly from the level five years ago, when adjusted for inflation, to $21,020 this year.
Still, some students pay the full, published prices. And college officials and analysts have worried (see last year’s $50K club article) that if list prices continue to rise, they may drive away applicants and draw pressure from policy makers. A sticker price of $50,000 is more than twice the annual income for a family of four living at the poverty line, $22,050.
But other observers forecast little decline in the number of students eager to attend elite institutions charging big sticker prices.
Berkeley’s charges topping $50,000 represent an outlier among the nearly 600 four-year public institutions for which the College Board reported out-of-state charges for tuition, fees, room, and board in 2010-11. The median such charge in that group was $23,526.
Only 14 public institutions besides Berkeley set those charges at $40,000 or higher in 2010-11. Of them, eight are other campuses in the University of California system. The other six institutions are the College of William & Mary and the Universities of Colorado at Boulder, Michigan at Ann Arbor, Texas at Austin, Vermont, and Virginia. [Editor’s Note: The last two paragraphs were added to this article on November 2, 2010, after its original publication.]
Institutions charging $50,000 or more:
| | Tuition, fees, room, and board ($) | |
| Institution | 2010-11 | 2009-10 | 1-year increase |
| Sarah Lawrence College | 57,384 | 55,788 | 2.9% |
| Landmark College | 56,500 | 53,900 | 4.8% |
| Columbia U. School of General Studies | 54,782 | 51,930 | 5.5% |
| Wesleyan U. | 53,976 | 51,432 | 4.9% |
| Columbia U. | 53,874 | 51,544 | 4.5% |
| Johns Hopkins U. | 53,690 | 51,690 | 3.9% |
| Georgetown U. | 53,591 | 52,161 | 2.7% |
| New York U. | 53,589 | 51,993 | 3.1% |
| Harvey Mudd College | 53,588 | 51,137 | 4.8% |
| Barnard College | 53,496 | 50,969 | 5.0% |
| Bard College | 53,480 | 51,180 | 4.5% |
| Trinity College (Conn.) | 53,330 | 51,400 | 3.8% |
| Washington U. in St. Louis | 53,315 | 51,193 | 4.1% |
| Bates College | 53,300 | 51,300 | 3.9% |
| U. of Chicago | 53,244 | 51,078 | 4.2% |
| Claremont McKenna College | 53,230 | 51,035 | 4.3% |
| Connecticut College | 53,110 | 51,115 | 3.9% |
| Fordham U. | 53,093 | 50,598 | 4.9% |
| Vassar College | 53,090 | 51,470 | 3.1% |
| Pitzer College | 53,080 | 50,770 | 4.5% |
| George Washington U. | 53,025 | 51,775 | 2.4% |
| Vanderbilt U. | 53,000 | 51,228 | 3.5% |
| Haverford College | 52,970 | 50,975 | 3.9% |
| Stevens Institute of Technology | 52,965 | 50,750 | 4.4% |
| Babson College | 52,916 | 50,324 | 5.2% |
| Bennington College | 52,900 | 50,860 | 4.0% |
| Scripps College | 52,900 | 50,550 | 4.6% |
| Bowdoin College | 52,880 | 50,900 | 3.9% |
| New School Parsons School of Design | 52,870 | 51,270 | 3.1% |
| Tufts U. | 52,866 | 51,088 | 3.5% |
| Occidental College | 52,815 | 49,702 | 6.3% |
| U. of Southern California | 52,752 | 50,732 | 4.0% |
| Carnegie Mellon U. | 52,690 | 51,068 | 3.2% |
| Boston College | 52,624 | 50,970 | 3.2% |
| Bard College at Simon’s Rock | 52,610 | 50,340 | 4.5% |
| Oberlin College | 52,587 | 50,484 | 4.2% |
| Middlebury College | 52,500 | 50,780 | 3.4% |
| Northwestern U. | 52,463 | 50,164 | 4.6% |
| Dartmouth College | 52,445 | 50,084 | 4.7% |
| Eastman School of Music of U. of Rochester | 52,372 | 50,326 | 4.1% |
| Williams College | 52,340 | 49,880 | 4.9% |
| Union College (N.Y.) | 52,329 | 50,439 | 3.7% |
| Cornell U. | 52,316 | 50,114 | 4.4% |
| Bucknell U. | 52,280 | 50,320 | 3.9% |
| Hampshire College | 52,202 | 50,450 | 3.5% |
| St. John’s College (Md.) | 52,176 | 50,352 | 3.6% |
| St. John’s College (N.M.) | 52,176 | 49,992 | 4.4% |
| Skidmore College | 52,170 | 51,196 | 1.9% |
| Hobart and William Smith Colleges | 52,168 | 50,245 | 3.8% |
| Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | 52,145 | 50,310 | 3.6% |
| Boston U. | 52,124 | 50,288 | 3.7% |
| Carleton College | 52,110 | 50,205 | 3.8% |
| Franklin & Marshall College | 52,110 | 50,410 | 3.4% |
| Colgate U. | 52,060 | 50,940 | 2.2% |
| Mount Holyoke College | 52,036 | 50,576 | 2.9% |
| Colby College | 51,990 | 50,320 | 3.3% |
| Boston Conservatory | 51,985 | 49,856 | 4.3% |
| Dickinson College | 51,975 | 50,219 | 3.5% |
| Wellesley College | 51,950 | 49,848 | 4.2% |
| U. of Pennsylvania | 51,944 | 49,986 | 3.9% |
| Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering | 51,925 | 50,025 | 3.8% |
| U. of Rochester | 51,922 | 49,890 | 4.1% |
| Smith College | 51,898 | 50,380 | 3.0% |
| Duke U. | 51,865 | 49,895 | 3.9% |
| Reed College | 51,850 | 49,950 | 3.8% |
| Bryn Mawr College | 51,780 | 50,034 | 3.5% |
| Lafayette College | 51,774 | 50,289 | 3.0% |
| St. Lawrence U. | 51,770 | 49,925 | 3.7% |
| Hamilton College (N.Y.) | 51,760 | 49,860 | 3.8% |
| Tulane U. | 51,708 | 50,190 | 3.0% |
| Amherst College | 51,520 | 49,078 | 5.0% |
| Swarthmore College | 51,500 | 49,600 | 3.8% |
| Brandeis U. | 51,488 | 49,562 | 3.9% |
| Chapman U. | 51,481 | 49,596 | 3.8% |
| Fairfield U. | 51,430 | 49,410 | 4.1% |
| Gettysburg College | 51,390 | 48,460 | 6.0% |
| Brown U. | 51,360 | 49,128 | 4.5% |
| Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts | 51,350 | 49,810 | 3.1% |
| Berklee College of Music | 51,335 | 48,733 | 5.3% |
| Pomona College | 51,330 | 49,668 | 3.3% |
| Wheaton College (Mass.) | 51,264 | 49,440 | 3.7% |
| Providence College | 51,125 | 44,480 | 14.9% |
| Wake Forest U. | 50,980 | 49,032 | 4.0% |
| College of the Holy Cross | 50,832 | 49,342 | 3.0% |
| U. of Notre Dame | 50,785 | 48,845 | 4.0% |
| Harvard College | 50,724 | 48,684 | 4.2% |
| U. of California at Berkeley (out-of-state residents) | 50,649 | 47,726 | 6.1% |
| Drew U. | 50,647 | 48,385 | 4.7% |
| Washington and Lee U. | 50,630 | 48,702 | 4.0% |
| Stanford U. | 50,576 | 48,843 | 3.5% |
| Villanova U. | 50,550 | 49,330 | 2.5% |
| Pepperdine U. | 50,470 | 48,750 | 3.5% |
| West Coast U. | 50,453 | n/a | n/a |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 50,446 | 49,142 | 2.7% |
| U. of Richmond | 50,420 | 48,490 | 4.0% |
| Kenyon College | 50,400 | 48,240 | 4.5% |
| New School Mannes College of Music | 50,360 | 48,860 | 3.1% |
| Emory U. | 50,356 | 48,932 | 2.9% |
| Loyola Marymount U. | 50,334 | 48,679 | 3.4% |
| Lehigh U. | 50,300 | 48,830 | 3.0% |
| Worcester Polytechnic Institute | 50,240 | 48,868 | 2.8% |
| American U. | 50,165 | 47,903 | 4.7% |
| Cleveland Institute of Music | 50,005 | 47,157 | 6.0% |
| Loyola U. Maryland | 50,000 | 47,810 | 4.6% |
| Note: The designation “n/a” means data were not available. Students incur additional costs not included in these figures, such as books and transportation. This list includes units of institutions that are also shown on the list. In the accompanying news article, The Chronicle did not include the units in tallies of the number of institutions charging $50,000 or more. |
| Source: The College Board collected the figures for 2010-11 in its “Annual Survey of Colleges 2010.” © 2010, the College Board. This material may not be copied, published, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. |
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