https://nypost.com/2026/09/03/us-news/15-colleges-now-cost-100k-per-year-and-almost-none-of-them-are-worth-it/

Goodness gracious. Over $400K for four years for some liberal arts degree in some quaint New England town.

Wasteful

VOTE BLUE AND VOTE GAVIN

Ridiculous.

Harvey Mudd College, Calif. $104,512
Duke University, NC $103,975
University of Chicago, Ill. $103,821
University of Southern California, Calif. $103,162
Barnard College, NY $103,000
Washington University, Mo. $102,260
Smith College, Mass. $102,226
Fordham University, NY $102,188
Claremont McKenna College, Calif. $101,990
Vassar College, NY $101,051
Wesleyan University, Conn. $101,030
New York University, NY $100,998
Georgetown University, DC $100,864
Colgate University, NY $100,224
Haverford College, Penn. $100,026

Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, has a total estimated sticker price of $104,512 for the 202627 academic year. [1, 2]

Cost Breakdown

• Total Sticker Price: $104,512 (includes tuition, fees, housing, and food)
• Average Need-Based Grant: $64,941
• Net Price (Sticker minus grant): $39,571
• Average Discount: 62%

St. Mary's College in Moraga.
$60,000 a year before room and board.

My friend's daughter is there.
$80,000 with housing. She got $25,000 in aid.


https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/st-marys-college-of-california-1302/paying

DiabloWags said:

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St. Mary's College in Moraga.
$60,000 a year before room and board.

My friend's daughter is there.
$80,000 with housing. She got $25,000 in aid.


https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/st-marys-college-of-california-1302/paying

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Insane, it's basically a boarding school

tequila4kapp said:

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This is a good topic. The cost is absurd

2025 OOS to the UCs was @85k, total cost of attendance. Our minds naturally go to Cal and maybe UCLA where a case could theoretically be made but think UCD, UCSB, UCSC, etc. IIRC 2025 OOS to Arizona - ARIZONA - was also 85k. There are other examples.

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U of A out of state is 85K? and UCSC is 85K? OMG

SBGold said:

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DiabloWags said:

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St. Mary's College in Moraga.
$60,000 a year before room and board.

My friend's daughter is there.
$80,000 with housing. She got $25,000 in aid.


https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/st-marys-college-of-california-1302/paying

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Insane, it's basically a boarding school

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Pretty much.
1,955 undergrad students

Aunburdened said:

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If you want to seriously discuss the origins of inflation, the skyrocketing of college tuition along with the proliferation of instant money to make that cost "viable" is a big part of it. Not as big as the amount of money stolen by the defense industry every year in the service of fighting pointless wars, but a big part.

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Yes, please elaborate.
What is this thing you call instant money that helps the cost be viable?

Big C said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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Big C said:

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My son is a high school senior. He likes UW*. I like the UCs and Cal Poly. We're having an ongoing discussion.

* He likes Cal, too, but we have to figure that getting in is a long shot

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This probably isn't your first to go to college but just in case...the best advice we got from our HS guidance people was to have these conversations early and explicitly, that the worst situations occur when parent and kid each have assumed things and it comes out for the first time at decision time. So I am glad you are talking now. We had the early talks and it was still very hard.

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Good advice: I probably need to step up the conversation. So far, I've been talking about our family income and expenditures and hoping he reaches the desired conclusion on his own. But teenagers often don't see reality. They hear what their friends are saying though!

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I know that UW can have some decent financial aid for out of staters (my kid got offered some decent funding and did like UW, didn't end up there though).

Go Bears

HearstMining said:

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I went to Cal way back in the 1970s and from a scholastic perspective, didn't love it. But I was a Berkeley kid and they had the major I wanted while most other UCs didn't. I know a couple of nerdy kids (contemporaries of my sons) who started at Cal in the 2000s and subsequently transferred elsewhere (one to Davis) because it wasn't their cup of tea. So, I'm interested in Berkeley's current allure for those writing the tuition checks, particularly compared to other UCs.

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I had the same experience as you back in the late 70's.

The Haas Undergrad Business School didn't have much "depth" to its curriculum.
The courses were few and far between and literally one of everything. That's it.
One real estate class. One organizational behavior class. One market marketing class. One investments class.

Nowadays, the curriculum has 30x more "depth" to it.

I guess you could say that $3,000 all in was a bargain back then.
But there is no way that I would pay $85,000 a year nowadays at Haas even with the better curriculum offered.

I didn't learn much in the "classroom" while at CAL.

I simply learned how to deal with a TON of anxiety and pain in the quarter system.
And it was a lot of pain.

Big C said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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Big C said:

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My son is a high school senior. He likes UW*. I like the UCs and Cal Poly. We're having an ongoing discussion.

* He likes Cal, too, but we have to figure that getting in is a long shot

---

This probably isn't your first to go to college but just in case...the best advice we got from our HS guidance people was to have these conversations early and explicitly, that the worst situations occur when parent and kid each have assumed things and it comes out for the first time at decision time. So I am glad you are talking now. We had the early talks and it was still very hard.

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Good advice: I probably need to step up the conversation. So far, I've been talking about our family income and expenditures and hoping he reaches the desired conclusion on his own. But teenagers often don't see reality. They hear what their friends are saying though!

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Big C, file the following under "Information I didn't ask for"
We put two sons through Cal Poly SLO; majors in Engineering and Industrial Technology, so my comments apply to that. You've probably heard Cal Poly's "learn by doing" philosophy. This definitely does not mean it's a "vocational" school. What it does mean is that there's lots of lab time and lots of discussion about how topics relate to the business/tech world. Cal's focus is more on theory, first. This manifests itself in a couple of ways:

• Learning Style: if you're strong at abstract, conceptual thinking, Cal's approach might be best. If you like concrete examples to really drive theoretical understanding, Cal Poly may be your cup of tea. You're going to work hard at either place.
• Goals: If your student is already thinking about a PhD, Cal will probably prepare you better for that route. Cal Poly will probably better prepare you for that first job. Five years down the road, where you got your degree probably won't make much difference.
• Hopefully Cal's career placement office is better now, but Cal Poly's is great. Not only career, but summer internships that, incidentally, paid great.

I lived near Seattle for nine years and worked with several UW grads. My sense was that UW's academic approach was similar to Cal's. But I would consider THE WEATHER. Winter days in Seattle are wet, grey, and very short. If your kid is used to walking around in shorts and a t-shirt, they'll be in for rude awakening. They used to say that the Washington state bird was a slug with wings.

When we took the college tour at Poly, a parent asked about impacted classes and how reasonable it was to graduate in four years. The student leaders reply was priceless, "At Cal Poly, we like to say that graduating in four years is like leaving the party at 9PM!"

I just made my first UCSC out of state tuition payment. They say the cost is $87k but it's actually a bit less because virtually all oos kids get an Award. Ours was $15k so the cost for us is $72k. Why is it worth it to us? First, because we can afford it without burdening our daughter with student loans. Second, because after a somewhat unhappy high school experience the alternative vibe at UCSC is exactly the place where our daughter thinks she will feel at home. She'll also get a good education. Also, outside shot we are paying in-state by her junior year.

Most kids don't pay the exorbitant prices listed for the northeast liberal arts school. That is the price paid by mediocre rich kids. The price goes down for everybody else.

It is really a crime the way we exploit the opportunities our children may have as cash cows. State Universities would cost what community colleges cost if our priorities were right.

HearstMining said:

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Big C said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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Big C said:

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My son is a high school senior. He likes UW*. I like the UCs and Cal Poly. We're having an ongoing discussion.

* He likes Cal, too, but we have to figure that getting in is a long shot

---

This probably isn't your first to go to college but just in case...the best advice we got from our HS guidance people was to have these conversations early and explicitly, that the worst situations occur when parent and kid each have assumed things and it comes out for the first time at decision time. So I am glad you are talking now. We had the early talks and it was still very hard.

---

Good advice: I probably need to step up the conversation. So far, I've been talking about our family income and expenditures and hoping he reaches the desired conclusion on his own. But teenagers often don't see reality. They hear what their friends are saying though!

---

Big C, file the following under "Information I didn't ask for"
We put two sons through Cal Poly SLO; majors in Engineering and Industrial Technology, so my comments apply to that. You've probably heard Cal Poly's "learn by doing" philosophy. This definitely does not mean it's a "vocational" school. What it does mean is that there's lots of lab time and lots of discussion about how topics relate to the business/tech world. Cal's focus is more on theory, first. This manifests itself in a couple of ways:

• Learning Style: if you're strong at abstract, conceptual thinking, Cal's approach might be best. If you like concrete examples to really drive theoretical understanding, Cal Poly may be your cup of tea. You're going to work hard at either place.
• Goals: If your student is already thinking about a PhD, Cal will probably prepare you better for that route. Cal Poly will probably better prepare you for that first job. Five years down the road, where you got your degree probably won't make much difference.
• Hopefully Cal's career placement office is better now, but Cal Poly's is great. Not only career, but summer internships that, incidentally, paid great.

I lived near Seattle for nine years and worked with several UW grads. My sense was that UW's academic approach was similar to Cal's. But I would consider THE WEATHER. Winter days in Seattle are wet, grey, and very short. If your kid is used to walking around in shorts and a t-shirt, they'll be in for rude awakening. They used to say that the Washington state bird was a slug with wings.

When we took the college tour at Poly, a parent asked about impacted classes and how reasonable it was to graduate in four years. The student leaders reply was priceless, "At Cal Poly, we like to say that graduating in four years is like leaving the party at 9PM!"

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Thanks, good stuff. I have heard similar things about Cal Poly, which is why it's "on the list".

dajo9 said:

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Most kids don't pay the exorbitant prices listed for the northeast liberal arts school. That is the price paid by mediocre rich kids. The price goes down for everybody else.

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If I remember correctly from my econ classes 50+ years ago at Cal (always a dubious proposition), this is a textbook case of capturing the consumer surplus

LudwigsFountain said:

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dajo9 said:

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Most kids don't pay the exorbitant prices listed for the northeast liberal arts school. That is the price paid by mediocre rich kids. The price goes down for everybody else.

.

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If I remember correctly from my econ classes 50+ years ago at Cal (always a dubious proposition), this is a textbook case of capturing the consumer surplus

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Yes. Dynamic pricing?

dajo9 said:

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LudwigsFountain said:

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dajo9 said:

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Most kids don't pay the exorbitant prices listed for the northeast liberal arts school. That is the price paid by mediocre rich kids. The price goes down for everybody else.

.

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If I remember correctly from my econ classes 50+ years ago at Cal (always a dubious proposition), this is a textbook case of capturing the consumer surplus

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Yes. Dynamic pricing?

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Given my age and forgetfulness I'm going out on a limb here, but I believe dynamic pricing refers to changing a single charged price over time depending on current demand. What the colleges are doing is engaging in price discrimination to take advantage of the consumers (parents of mediocre rich kids) who are willing to pay more than the equilibrim price

LudwigsFountain said:

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dajo9 said:

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LudwigsFountain said:

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dajo9 said:

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Most kids don't pay the exorbitant prices listed for the northeast liberal arts school. That is the price paid by mediocre rich kids. The price goes down for everybody else.

.

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If I remember correctly from my econ classes 50+ years ago at Cal (always a dubious proposition), this is a textbook case of capturing the consumer surplus

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Yes. Dynamic pricing?

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Given my age and forgetfulness I'm going out on a limb here, but I believe dynamic pricing refers to changing a single charged price over time depending on current demand. What the colleges are doing is engaging in price discrimination to take advantage of the consumers (parents of mediocre rich kids) who are willing to pay more than the equilibrim price

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Sounds good to me