Barnard is wonderful about posting stats online – so here’s a printout showing tuition back to 2005-2006:
Tuition: $29,364
Total COA: $41,802
If you are mathy, then the total COA seems to have been going up on average $2500 per year, with roughly $2000 yearly attributable to tuition. So extrapolating back I’d guess the that three years earlier, for 2002-2003, I’d guess around $23K for tuition, $34K for overall COA.
I know from my own records that NYU costs were pretty much on par with Barnard – though a little tricker because NYU of a wider range of housing options.
Honestly, have you read the financial aid threads? This is a very common financing vehicle – look at the PLUS loan thread.-- which is largely a discussion of HELOC vs. PLUS. Plenty of CC families do it and also advocate that route for others.