The real most expensive colleges in the US – it’s more than just tuition

Think you know the real most expensive colleges in the US? Think again. While college tuition in America is very high, there’s more to the cost of college than just the sticker price.

Most Americans take out student loans to pay for school – and those loans accrue interest. This means that for many, the true cost of college can only be measured accurately long after graduation. To illustrate this, we list the colleges whose graduates have the most college debt 10 years after leaving school.

“For many, the true cost of college can only be measured accurately long after graduation. To illustrate this, we list the colleges whose graduates have the most college debt 10 years after leaving school.”

A decade on, a cheap but worthless degree could wind up costing you more than a lucrative one with high tuition.

In this article, we discuss how factors such as financial aid and a degree’s return on investment (ROI) affect what students ultimately pay for university. In doing so, we reveal the true most expensive colleges in the US – proving it’s not just about tuition.

The most expensive colleges in the US

One straightforward way of determining the most expensive US colleges is to look at tuition sticker price. A college’s sticker price is the big, scary number that’s the officially advertised cost of tuition.

However, most college students don’t end up paying this, thanks largely to financial aid. What they do end up paying after financial aid is deducted is often referred to as the “net price” of college.

To highlight the difference between net price and sticker price, we have listed the colleges with the highest tuition versus the colleges with the highest average net cost below.

» Read: The most and least expensive private colleges in each state 

The colleges with the highest tuition are mostly elite, private, East-Coast schools. Many are Ivy Leagues. The university with the highest tuition is Columbia, which advertises an eye-watering sticker price of $61,671 per year.

The colleges with the highest tuition

Source: IPEDS

Fortunately, these colleges aren’t as pricey as they seem. Relatively few students pay the sticker price thanks to financial aid.

Low-income students especially benefit from generous scholarships.

Note that because all these universities are private, tuition is the same for in-state and out-of-state students.

In-state tuition at public universities is much cheaper. However not all public colleges are equally affordable. Below, we list the colleges with the highest in-state tuition.

Public universities with the highest in-state tuition

Source: IPEDS

When we look at a list of the colleges with the highest average net cost, we see a totally different group of schools than those with high tuition rates.

Data on colleges’ average net cost per year comes from College Scorecard and IPEDS, which calculate cost figures by factoring in variables such as tuition, financial aid, room and board, and other cost factors. This data is for students who receive at least $1 in Title IV grants.

The most expensive colleges by net cost are all art schools and private liberal art colleges. None are public institutions. We rank the 15 most expensive colleges by net cost of attendance below. Data is for the 2022-2023 academic year.

The colleges with the highest net cost

Source: College Scorecard

The college with the highest net cost for students is Southern California Institute of the Arts, where students fork out an average of $56,876 per year. Like the previous list, all the colleges here are private, so there’s no difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition.

» Read: The most and least expensive private colleges in each state

Why tuition isn’t everything

Why are the two lists above so different? The main factor that makes sticker price so different from net price is financial aid. The real cost of college is mitigated by grants from the government and scholarships from colleges.

Many of the universities on the first list – which advertise such high tuition prices – have large endowments, allowing them to offer scholarships to most students who get in.

Generally speaking, only relatively high-income households pay the full tuition price for elite Ivy League schools.

In contrast, the colleges in the second list – mostly art schools – are less able (or willing) to afford such generosity. This shows that tuition price alone is a bad measure for the most expensive colleges in America. What students really pay for college is determined by the amount of financial aid they’re offered.

To pay for costs that remain, most students turn to loans. And this is where things get really expensive.

Student loans and the long-term cost of college

Roughly 38% of first-time, full-time undergrads received federal loans in 2020-2021, which is down 12% since 2010-2011.

The average amount of student loan debt for the 2017-2018 undergraduate class was $26,190 just for federal loans, or $34,930 with Parent PLUS loans factored in. This data does not factor in students who did not take out any loans or who took out private loans (just 7.6% of loans are from private lenders).

How long does it take to pay off student loans?

Most loans come with a rather optimistic 10-year repayment plan. However, research suggests that student loans actually take about 20 years for the average American borrower to pay off. This sobering statistic underscores the fact that, as a senior in high school, the decisions you make now will impact you far into the future.

» Read: Why public colleges are generally a better deal

Students who struggle to make the 10-year repayment plan can enter an extended repayment plan, which ostensibly ensures that student loans get paid off in 20-25 years. The alternative – defaulting on your student loans – can have profound implications for your financial health, making it difficult to take out a mortgage or get a credit card.

In other words, the actual cost of college is measured in decades. If you take out a lot of loans for a worthless degree and are unable to make your payments, interest on them will grow, and your degree will only get more expensive as time passes.

Conversely, taking on debt to pay for a degree with a high ROI can be a smart investment.

Colleges whose students take on the most debt

At the colleges listed below, students are taking out the most loans per year on average to attend.

These private institutions are a mixed bag of arts colleges, religiously affiliated universities, nursing schools, and others.

Source: IPEDS

Were students at these schools wise to take on so much debt? Some of the colleges listed above, like West Coast University – Ontario, a nursing college, lead directly to a fairly lucrative degree.

Schools like the Southern California Institute of Architecture? Not so much. Students at the Manhattan School of Music took on a remarkable amount of debt to attend. We reached out to the school to inquire about the reasons for this, but we did not receive a response.

One way to determine when loans are worth it is by using our Economic Score metric, which we explain below.

Is the debt worth it for an expensive degree? Calculating a degree’s ROI

Think of your degree as an investment.

Degrees with a high return on investment – or ROI – earn you more than enough money in the long term to make up for the money you pay in at the beginning. Ideally, a college degree should always be a good investment, but in reality, many degrees are just not worth it.

» Read: Is college still worth it?

So what colleges are the worst investments – and hence the most expensive in the long term? There are several ways to look at this. One way is to use our economic score to calculate the worst colleges in the US.

Another is to look at the colleges where graduates are struggling the most to pay back their loans 10 years after graduation.

The real most expensive colleges – 10 years after graduating

We have used data from IPEDS and College Scorecard to compile a list of universities where graduates still had the most student debt 10 years after graduating. Data is from 2020 (meaning the individuals covered graduated in 2010), as this is the most recent year available.

For many, these colleges are the true most expensive colleges: they are financial traps that are saddling students with debt they have little chance of paying back.

The 15 colleges on this list are not all the same as the ones with the highest tuition, net cost, or most debt at graduation (although there is some overlap), indicating that in the long term, the value of your degree is more important than price.

Source: IPEDS

These numbers underscore how expensive college can become if you fail to make informed choices about your degree. Deciding to study art at an expensive private college can have financial implications that last your entire working life.

In terms of dangerous debt, the worst offender is the Design Institute of San Diego, where the average student still owed $26,056 in 2020 10 years after graduating. Today, the average earnings of people who attended this arts college 4 years after leaving school are $45,321.

The college’s high Economic Score of 10.05 is a strong indicator that this college is simply not worth the money (for our Economic Score, higher is worse).

» Read: Tuition free college? Yes, it’s possible

While the Design Institute of San Diego may not seem like the most expensive college at first glance, its graduates are struggling the longest to pay the bill for college – a bill that can keep getting bigger as time goes on.

Final thoughts

It can be difficult to estimate how much a college really costs, as many universities with high tuition prices offer generous financial aid. Meanwhile, some colleges which are ostensibly cheaper are conferring worthless degrees that leave graduates with a huge debt burden.

Now, more than ever, it’s vital to calculate the investment value of a college degree.

Explore our rankings of the best colleges in America to determine which universities offer the best value for money, ensuring you don’t spend your entire working life paying off student debt