How much could college cost for your kids?
We looked into the cost of tuition at 100 national universities for the past ten years to find out.
The average school has increased tuition + fees by 30% over the last decade, even after accounting for inflation
If we don’t slow that down, the average school in our dataset will cost twice as much for your kids as it does today
20 Most Expensive Schools Today |
20 Most Expensive Schools For Your Kids |
||||
School | 2017/18 Cost in 2019 Dollars |
School | 2045/46 Cost in 2019 Dollars * |
||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Columbia | $58K | William and Mary | $156K | |
2 | U Chicago | $57K | Texas Christian | $141K | |
3 | Tufts | $55K | SMU | $141K | |
4 | USC | $55K | Baylor | $133K | |
5 | Carnegie Mellon | $55K | Illinois IofT | $126K | |
6 | Brandeis | $55K | U Chicago | $118K | |
7 | UPenn | $54K | Columbia | $116K | |
8 | Duke | $54K | Fordham | $107K | |
9 | GW | $54K | USC | $105K | |
10 | Brown | $54K | Dartmouth | $104K | |
11 | Dartmouth | $54K | Cornell | $103K | |
12 | BC | $54K | Northeastern | $103K | |
13 | Tulane | $54K | Duke | $102K | |
14 | Cornell | $54K | Brandeis | $101K | |
15 | Northwestern | $54K | BC | $100K | |
16 | SMU | $53K | UPenn | $99K | |
17 | Rensselaer | $53K | Rice | $99K | |
18 | Georgetown | $53K | Tufts | $99K | |
19 | Johns Hopkins | $53K | CalTech | $98K | |
20 | BU | $53K | Northwestern | $97K |
20 Most Expensive Schools Today |
||
School | 2017/18 Cost in 2019 Dollars |
|
---|---|---|
1 | Columbia | $58K |
2 | U Chicago | $57K |
3 | Tufts | $55K |
4 | USC | $55K |
5 | Carnegie Mellon | $55K |
6 | Brandeis | $55K |
7 | UPenn | $54K |
8 | Duke | $54K |
9 | GW | $54K |
10 | Brown | $54K |
11 | Dartmouth | $54K |
12 | BC | $54K |
13 | Tulane | $54K |
14 | Cornell | $54K |
15 | Northwestern | $54K |
16 | SMU | $53K |
17 | Rensselaer | $53K |
18 | Georgetown | $53K |
19 | Johns Hopkins | $53K |
20 | BU | $53K |
20 Most Expensive Schools For Your Kids |
||
School | 2045/46 Cost in 2019 Dollars |
|
---|---|---|
1 | William and Mary | $156K |
2 | Texas Christian | $141K |
3 | SMU | $141K |
4 | Baylor | $133K |
5 | Illinois IofT | $126K |
6 | U Chicago | $118K |
7 | Columbia | $116K |
8 | Fordham | $107K |
9 | USC | $105K |
10 | Dartmouth | $104K |
11 | Cornell | $103K |
12 | Northeastern | $103K |
13 | Duke | $102K |
14 | Brandeis | $101K |
15 | BC | $100K |
16 | UPenn | $99K |
17 | Rice | $99K |
18 | Tufts | $99K |
19 | CalTech | $98K |
20 | Northwestern | $97K |
See what could happen at your school or alma mater
How did we run the numbers?
- Step 1: Look at nominal tuition and mandatory fees for each school, as reported by IPEDS. This includes data through the 2017-18 academic year.
- Step 2: Adjust historical tuition + fees for 2019 dollars. Multiply nominal data by inflation factor. Specifically, anchor on 2019, look at Bureau of Labor Statistics data on what a dollar in 2018 is worth in 2019, for example. Repeat the process for all previous years.
- Step 3: Now that you have inflation adjusted tuition + fees, calculate the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the past 10 years. Mechanically, the formula is (Final Year Tuition / First Year Tuition)^(1/10)-1. You can also do this over a 3 year period.
- Step 4: Project future costs. We've already adjusted for inflation in the previous step, so the formula is (2019 tuition + fees) X (1 + Inflation Adjusted CAGR)^(t years in the future).
Learn more about your University
- American University
- Baylor University
- Binghamton University--SUNY
- Boston College
- Boston University
- Brandeis University
- Brigham Young University
- Brown University
- California Institute of Technology
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Case Western Reserve University
- Clark University
- Clemson University
- College of William and Mary
- Colorado School of Mines
- Columbia University
- Cornell University
- Dartmouth
- Duke University
- Emory University
- Florida State University
- Fordham University
- George Washington University
- Georgetown University
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Harvard University
- Howard University
- Illinois Institute of Technology
- Indiana University
- Johns Hopkins University
- Lehigh University
- Loyola University Chicago
- Marquette University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Miami University--Oxford
- Michigan State University
- New York University
- North Carolina State University--Raleigh
- Northeastern University
- Northwestern University
- Ohio State University
- Pennsylvania State University
- Pepperdine University
- Princeton University
- Purdue University
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
- Rice University
- Rutgers University--New Brunswick
- Southern Methodist University
- Stanford University
- Stevens Institute of Technology
- Stony Brook University--SUNY
- Syracuse University
- Texas A&M University
- Texas Christian University
- Tufts University
- Tulane University
- University at Buffalo--SUNY
- University of California--Berkeley
- University of California--Davis
- University of California--Irvine
- University of California--Los Angeles
- University of California--Riverside
- University of California--San Diego
- University of California--Santa Barbara
- University of California--Santa Cruz
- University of Chicago
- University of Colorado--Boulder
- University of Connecticut
- University of Delaware
- University of Denver
- University of Florida
- University of Georgia
- University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign
- University of Iowa
- University of Maryland
- University of Massachusetts--Amherst
- University of Miami
- University of Michigan
- University of Minnesota
- University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill
- University of Notre Dame
- University of Pennsylvania
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Rochester
- University of San Diego
- University of San Francisco
- University of Southern California
- University of Texas--Austin
- University of Virginia
- University of Washington
- University of Wisconsin
- Vanderbilt University
- Villanova University
- Virginia Tech
- Wake Forest University
- Washington University in St. Louis
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute
- Yale University
- Yeshiva University