Brown University costs $73,892 a year—but here’s how much students actually pay

Dave_Berry · June 2

"Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, reports that the cost to attend for the 2018-2019 academic year included $54,320 for tuition, $9,120 for rooming, $5,550 for boarding, $,2,017 for personal expenses, $1,595 for books and $1,236 for fees — totaling roughly $73,892.

But for some students, the cost of attending Brown is significantly less." ...

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/31/brown-costs-73892-a-yearbut-heres-how-much-students-actually-pay.html

damon30 · June 2

From the article.

While aid for middle- and low-income students at Brown may be generous, most students who attend are from wealthy families. According to The New York Times, the median parental income of a student at Brown is $204,200, the highest among all Ivy League schools.

Roughly 70% of Brown students come from the highest-earning 20% of American households. About 19% come from the highest-earning 1% of American households.

doschicos · June 2

No surprises here, IMO.

i_wanna_be_Brown · June 2

While aid for middle- and low-income students at Brown may be generous, most students who attend are from wealthy families. According to The New York Times, the median parental income of a student at Brown is $204,200, the highest among all Ivy League schools.

Roughly 70% of Brown students come from the highest-earning 20% of American households. About 19% come from the highest-earning 1% of American households.

Cuz I was curious as to how this fit with the other ivies:

MEDIAN PARENTAL INCOME (highest in the country is Colorado College 277,500)
1. Brown (204,200)
2. Dartmouth (200,400)
3. Penn (195,500)
4. Yale (192,600)
5. Princeton (186,100)
6. Harvard (168,800)
7. Cornell (151,600)
8. Columbia (150,900)

STUDENTS FROM TOP 20% (highest in the country is WashU 84%)
1. Princeton (72%)
2. Penn (71%)
3. Brown (70%)
4. Yale (69%)
5. Dartmouth (69%)
6. Harvard (67%)
7. Cornell (64%)
8. Columbia (62%)

STUDENTS FROM TOP 1% (highest in the country is Trinity College 26%)
1. Dartmouth (21%)
2. Brown (19%)
3. Penn (19%)
4. Yale (19%)
5. Princeton (17%)
6. Harvard (15%)
7. Columbia (13%)
8. Cornell (10%)

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/brown-university

CUandUCmom · June 2

Perhaps this is a silly question, but, how do they know? Clearly, if a student applies for financial aid the school would have parental income. But for full pay parents who do not file for FA - how would the school know this information? In this case, for the 19% at Brown that they identify as the highest 1% of American earners, it seems unlikely they would have "bothered" (for lack of a better word) filing for FA. Thanks.

CU123 · June 2

The most worthless info ever as its VERY individualized as to what the cost of Brown is. These are numbers only the administration at Brown cares about.

i_wanna_be_Brown · June 3

@CUandUCmom those numbers are via the NYTimes, not Brown.

NYT says

Source: “Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility”, by Raj Chetty, John Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner and Danny Yagan, The Equality of Opportunity Project

With a link: https://opportunityinsights.org/
I don't feel like digging into the source trail beyond that.

CUandUCmom · June 3

Thanks @i_wanna_be_Brown. I didn't dig through the whole report either - but found it interesting with a quick skim. The researchers indicated, "We use de-identified data from federal income tax returns and the Department of Education to obtain information on college attendance, students’ earnings in their early thirties, and their parents’ household incomes," so that explains how they could connect the students with their parents regardless of FA status - which answers my question. The downside of the study, though, is that they used children born between 1980 and 1982 which means these kids graduated college 15 or so years ago so the income analysis may no longer be valid. In any case, thanks for passing along the link!

i_wanna_be_Brown · June 4

@CUandUCmom Great catch on the fact that they are kids born between 1980 and 1982 which, as you said, means they most likely graduated college in 2002-2004. The NYT piece was about social mobility more generally, but that caveat makes it actually incorrect of CNBC to say the median household income of a student "at Brown" is $204,200. As you correctly point out, that was the median family income of students at Brown between 1998 and 2004. Brown only started being need blind to Americans when admitting the class of 2007 and wasn't across the board need blind until admitting the class of 2010.

Sue22 · June 4

Roughly 70% of Brown students come from the highest-earning 20% of American households.

And yet,

Among class of 2021 at Brown, 43% of students receive need-based scholarship or grant aid.

Meaning the two aren't mutually exclusive. About 13% of the class both comes from a family in the the top 20% and receives need-based financial aid.

i_wanna_be_Brown · June 4

Roughly 70% of Brown students who graduated between 2002 and 2004, when Brown University admissions was not need blind, came from the highest-earning 20% of American households.

FTFY

theloniusmonk · August 12

the income numbers do appear low, maybe it's because of the NYT numbers being 15 or so years old, as the minimum to get in the top 1% bracket is $421K (Economic Policy Institute) and the average income of the 1% is $1.32 million. So if 19% of Brown is top-1% the 200K may be understating wealth.

homerdog · August 13

I hate these stories. They always seem to be titled "what students really pay." Come on. Schools also send out marketing material that sometimes includes "average net cost" numbers to show what families "really pay" and it's also mentioned sometimes at info sessions when you visit. We are a full pay family and it doesn't apply to us and I'm not really dying to know what the "average" amount is that is paid. These schools never mention that, in many cases, 50% of families are full pay. (At least that's the number we found at many of the LACs that S19 applied to.)

It's false advertising to give a number that families "actually pay". We knew better but many families do not. It's easy to read an article or a marketing brochure and get the idea that you won't pay full price.

Brown University costs $73,892 a year—but here’s how much students actually pay

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