Almost all of the four-year public and private nonprofit institutions that spent the most on instructional spending per full-time-equivalent student in 2014-15 are medical schools or include medical schools. Such schools have traditionally had high instructional costs. Private nonprofit institutions reported the greatest instructional spending per student, with median spending per student that was $676 greater than at public institutions. Median instructional spending per student at four-year for-profit institutions was less than half that of either private nonprofit or public institutions.
4-year public institutions
| 1. | U. of Texas Southwestern Medical Center | $820,637,221 | 6 | 1,124 | 953 | 2,083 | $393,969 |
| 2. | U. of Texas Health Science Center at Houston | $594,110,069 | 913 | 1,963 | 1,350 | 4,226 | $140,584 |
| 3. | U. of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio | $423,508,849 | 979 | 971 | 1,394 | 3,344 | $126,647 |
| 4. | U. of California at San Francisco | $361,443,857 | — | 1,431 | 1,647 | 3,078 | $117,428 |
| 5. | Oklahoma State U. Center for Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine | $66,320,127 | — | 143 | 430 | 573 | $115,742 |
| 6. | U. of Tennessee Health Science Center | $309,822,771 | 230 | 1,296 | 1,704 | 3,230 | $95,920 |
| 7. | U. of Texas Medical Branch | $336,548,808 | 875 | 1,618 | 1,179 | 3,672 | $91,653 |
| 8. | State U. of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn | $134,873,755 | 385 | 486 | 865 | 1,736 | $77,692 |
| 9. | Thunderbird School of Global Management | $35,549,000 | — | 463 | — | 463 | $76,780 |
| 10. | State U. of New York Upstate Medical U. | $111,448,572 | 232 | 465 | 803 | 1,500 | $74,299 |
| 11. | Oregon Health & Science U. | $160,139,000 | 610 | 1,060 | 869 | 2,539 | $63,072 |
| 12. | Eastern Virginia Medical School | $75,326,494 | — | 653 | 583 | 1,236 | $60,944 |
| 13. | U. of Arkansas for Medical Sciences | $159,951,000 | 654 | 838 | 1,140 | 2,632 | $60,772 |
| 14. | Louisiana State U. Health Sciences Center at Shreveport | $60,263,157 | 41 | 369 | 613 | 1,023 | $58,908 |
| 15. | U. of Massachusetts at Worcester | $62,407,663 | — | 562 | 526 | 1,088 | $57,360 |
| Median for all 668 institutions | $60,253,727 | 6,038 | 867 | 492 | 6,667 | $8,330 |
4-year private nonprofit institutions
| 1. | Weill Cornell Medical College | $206,940,280 | — | 647 | 406 | 1,053 | $196,524 |
| 2. | Morehouse School of Medicine | $55,162,321 | — | 75 | 274 | 349 | $158,058 |
| 3. | Yale U. | $1,620,648,332 | 7,078 | 6,991 | 453 | 14,522 | $111,600 |
| 4. | Washington U. in St Louis | $1,537,685,000 | 7,247 | 3,977 | 2,849 | 14,073 | $109,265 |
| 5. | SIT Graduate Institute | $34,335,918 | — | 336 | — | 336 | $102,190 |
| 6. | Stanford U. | $1,561,558,000 | 7,404 | 6,928 | 1,019 | 15,351 | $101,724 |
| 7. | California Institute of Technology | $211,137,000 | 962 | 1,260 | — | 2,222 | $95,021 |
| 8. | U. of Chicago | $1,210,666,016 | 5,745 | 7,482 | 954 | 14,181 | $85,372 |
| 9. | Vanderbilt U. | $928,552,010 | 6,753 | 3,717 | 1,123 | 11,593 | $80,096 |
| 10. | Johns Hopkins U. | $1,756,405,000 | 6,999 | 14,824 | 460 | 22,283 | $78,823 |
| 11. | Columbia U. | $2,310,502,000 | 8,567 | 18,754 | 2,411 | 29,732 | $77,711 |
| 12. | Baylor College of Medicine | $126,272,360 | — | 885 | 764 | 1,649 | $76,575 |
| 13. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $756,447,000 | 4,488 | 6,689 | — | 11,177 | $67,679 |
| 14. | Duke U. | $989,502,000 | 8,137 | 5,082 | 2,046 | 15,265 | $64,822 |
| 15. | Yeshiva Sholom Shachna | $4,810,272 | 79 | — | — | 79 | $60,890 |
| Median for all 1,557 institutions | $9,622,369 | 1,164 | 203 | 307 | 1,103 | $9,006 |
4-year for-profit institutions
| 1. | College of Business and Technology-Kendall (Fla.) | $3,613,186 | 88 | — | — | 88 | $41,059 |
| 2. | Southwest Acupuncture College at Santa Fe | $1,990,277 | — | 67 | — | 67 | $29,706 |
| 3. | West Coast U.-Los Angeles | $47,810,242 | 1,622 | 275 | 82 | 1,979 | $24,159 |
| 4. | Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College | $7,182,175 | 298 | — | — | 298 | $24,101 |
| 5. | Broadview U. at West Jordan (Utah) | $4,318,856 | 179 | 5 | — | 184 | $23,472 |
| 6. | Skyline College at Roanoke | $2,197,492 | 96 | — | — | 96 | $22,891 |
| 7. | Galen College of Nursing at Louisville (Ky.) | $26,670,886 | 1,190 | — | — | 1,190 | $22,413 |
| 8. | Sotheby’s Institute of Art (N.Y.) | $2,797,146 | — | 130 | — | 130 | $21,517 |
| 9. | Savannah Law School | $1,872,331 | — | — | 88 | 88 | $21,276 |
| 10. | West Coast U.-Miami | $2,403,909 | 116 | — | — | 116 | $20,723 |
| 11. | Globe U.-Woodbury (Minn.) | $13,768,256 | 661 | 50 | — | 711 | $19,365 |
| 12. | Minnesota School of Business at Richfield | $13,567,899 | 662 | 53 | — | 715 | $18,976 |
| 13. | Baptist Health System School of Health Professions | $7,400,248 | 394 | — | — | 394 | $18,782 |
| 14. | Schiller International U. | $2,927,182 | 118 | 52 | — | 170 | $17,219 |
| 15. | Research College of Nursing | $5,424,408 | 238 | 85 | — | 323 | $16,794 |
| Median for all 652 institutions | $1,778,875 | 414 | 122 | 112 | 428 | $3,812 |
Note: Institutions with fewer than 50 students were excluded from the rankings, but the medians were based on all institutions in each sector that reported instructional spending. The numbers of full-time-equivalent, or FTE, students were calculated based on the total number of credit or contact hours reported by the institution over the 12-month enrollment period. A doctor’s degree-professional practice includes such degrees as dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.), law (J.D.), and medicine (M.D.). Instructional spending includes all expenses of instructional divisions of the institution as well as expenses for departmental research and public service that are not separately budgeted. Along with salaries, wages, and benefits incurred in instruction, the total includes operation and maintenance of buildings used for instruction, depreciation, interest, and other instructional expenses. The figure excludes expenses for academic administrators whose primary function is administration, for example, academic deans.
Source: Chronicle analysis of U.S. Department of Education data