| | | GZ, I'm talking from my own experience.
If you are in the top income level (say $246k annual income), then the total cost of attendance will be over $60k, very expensive.
But, if you are in the middle income range, the total cost of attendance will be in the $15k to $18k or so. This cost includes everything -- room and board, books, air tickets, tuition, ...
In my first son's case, the bill from a state university was 3k-5k higher than an Ivy league school, and so he chose the latter which made me happy mainly because I had to pay less. So for my second and third child I didn't even care to look at the state options if they were able to make the top private colleges as fin aid will make it cheaper. The high cost is a misinformation spread mainly by the very rich people to scare away the lower income people from applying LOL!
In many middle income and poor people's cases the total cost of top private colleges can be far less than the bill from state universities due to the generous need-based financial aid from private colleges. The following is for private colleges where the total (official) price tag is $65k+, but the actual cost paid by student and family can range from nearly nothing to nearly full cost depending on the parent income level. For the poor and lower middle income people, they pay nothing or nearly nothing by the parents, only a small student summer income contribution is needed.
Of course, community colleges provide excellent opportunities, my wife got an RN from a local community college many years ago, but many private colleges can be cheaper than many state colleges for most middle class families, unless you make $150k+ a year with like $300-500k in home equity and a lot of savings. For majority Americans (from Upper Middle and down), the (top) private colleges can be cheaper than their state universities.
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