A Look at Expensive Schools and their Net Price

Curious to see how much the ranking would change, we took our list of the 100 most expensive schools and found the average need-based grant given at each school as listed at the College Board. This data was then applied to the total cost of each school in an effort to find the net price: the cost after scholarships and grants are deducted.

Just because a college is listed among the most expensive colleges, doesn’t mean a student will be paying that amount. As mentioned in the ranking, they are sticker prices. As you will see below, many colleges provide substantial grants that greatly reduce the cost of attending. (Though, about one-third of full-time students do pay the full published tuition price with no grant assistance. Source: College Board)

Back in June, the Department of Education released a ranking of sorts highlighting colleges with the highest overall net price. (See: collegecost.ed.gov/catc) While the effort in trying to make college costs more transparent was praised, many noticed the data was from the 2008-2009 school year, making the “ranking” somewhat outdated. Being that we’ve already released tuition numbers for the 2011-2012 school year, we thought we’d take a look at how the rankings would mix up based on their net price.

To find the net price we apply the average need-based grant. Remember, the amount each student receives will vary per student. Use net price calculators, required on every college website as of October 29th, to best determine what you will actually be paying.

The main idea here is some colleges aren't as expensive as you would think. Take Harvard for example. While it sounds expensive, the net price at the school is very reasonable: the average grant covers 79% of the total cost, putting Harvard at a more affordable cost of just over $11,000 per year. Not bad for a college regarded as one of the nation's best.

Other examples:
• Sarah Lawrence College, the nation's most expensive (by sticker price), barely makes the top 25 when adjusting the ranking by net price.
• While Columbia University is depicted as an expensive school being listed at #3 on the most recent ranking, the average grant drops the net price considerably (85 spots in the ranking, the biggest downward move on the list).

Campus Grotto would like to highlight the following colleges, who, while being portrayed as being expensive by sticker price, provide grants that amount to more than two-thirds the total cost of attendance.

Most Expensive by Net Price

Here are the 10 most expensive colleges by net price for 2011-2012.

How the Top 100 Fare in Net Price

Net price for each school after the average grant is applied to the total cost of attendance for the 2011-2012 school year.

Remember, this is just looking at the top 100 schools from our ranking of most expensive colleges by total price. There are a few notable schools not included in this data set that would rank fairly high according to net price. After a quick analysis, the following schools would place among the top 25 (in the 14-25 range) in net price: Catholic University, University of Hartford, Lynn University, Quinnipiac University, Santa Clara University, and St. Joseph's University. Perhaps in the following years we will look at a larger sample of colleges when determining which colleges have the highest overall net price.

The Biggest Movers

Moved Down: Schools that are portrayed as expensive when ranking by sticker price, but drop considerably when ranking the same 100 by net price.

Moved Up: Schools that moved noticeably further up the ranking when adjusted by net price.