Is Paying $100,000 for College Really Worth It?

Parents Forum
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As per @Jeff_Selingo’s latest article in Intelligencer, at least 16 institutions will top $100,000 in cost of attendance for the 2026-2027 academic year. Am example here: Columbia, Barnard Raise Tuition, Cost of Attendance to Top $100,000

And while many colleges are offering tuition discounts and merit aid to help support the cost, “selective institutions operate differently,” says @Jeff_Selingo. “They have long benefited from enough demand to continue raising prices without widely discounting tuition.” The question now is: will families continue to accept these increases?

Is paying $100,000 for college really worth? Is a $100,000 college better than a $75,000 college to account for the difference?

Let us know your thoughts and personal experiences below!

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You can read @Jeff_Selingo’s full article below (put it’s paywalled and I don’t have a giftlink :frowning: ):

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Worth it to whom? For some, $100K is chump change, so for them, sure, it’s worth it. The average American family doesn’t even make that much in a year, so for them it’s out of the question.

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Kids can tell you if it’s worth it in 5 or 10 or 20 years after they graduate? Most will say it is because people don’t like to admit mistakes. And for some it will be. For others, if they’re actually paying $100K, it will be a train wreck, especially those heavily indebted - but shockingly, less so than people indebted at lesser known names - as overall those charging $100K probably produce a higher percentage of successful grads.

And worth isn’t always done through a financial lens - although I’m not sure how up front, it couldn’t be. After the fact (I met my wife, etc.) - sure, you can view things differently.

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It’s relevant to mention that the average American family (with median American income and assets) wouldn’t pay anything resembling $100k at the referenced colleges. At many of the colleges, it would be close to no cost to parents.

Whether it is worth it or not is difficult to evaluate. It’s easy for a student attending a particular college to list positive life events would not have happened had the student attended elsewhere. It’s far more difficult for a student to evaluate whether equally positive, different events would have happened had the student attended elsewhere. I’d expect whether it is “worth it” varies wildly between particular students, so there is not a single universal answer.

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I know kids whose families can afford to go to the most expensive schools but choose not to pay that. It may be because they found a better school for them instate or because they just can’t justify it.

Not everyone chooses to buy the most expensive house they can or the fanciest car. Many may choose a private hs but not the $80k/yr one, just the $25k/yr one.

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Yes, that’s a lot of us - hence a pre established budget. I, myself, cannot justify it - especially after having my dad waste $$ on a top name (on me).

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It at least depends on the major, and likely on intended line of work, and ability to make these plans happen. The school adds to the ability.

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High price doesn’t necessarily mean that a school is superior or better resourced.

My D had expensive privates on her list that we would have been more than happy to pay for but she felt the public flagships were a better fit for her and stronger for her major. If that was the reverse, we wouldn’t have hesitated to pay the higher price tag.

That said, I had a front row seat to an expensive private university experience and there were more issues with course registration, housing, internships, and hurdles to studying abroad than with my D’s public flagship. There were also way more covid disruptions. YMMV.

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I think that the highest ranked private universities that have no merit aid have probably cut their potential candidate students by a lot (perhaps a factor of 2, maybe more) due to pricing, but I think that they can still find plenty of students to accept who are very academically capable and who will do very well.

Then just as many or more very strong students attend different schools (in-state public schools or schools that give good merit aid, or less often schools outside the US) because that is what they can afford.

And just as many or more other very strong students attend different schools because that is where they want to go, and they just never wanted to attend an expensive private university.

Enough will to keep the class rooms full at the highly ranked expensive private universities.

Most will not.

And I think that in my industry (which was a part of high tech) hiring managers have noticed that the strongest applicants come from a very wide range of different universities, which they attended for a wide range of reasons.

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This is exactly right. My youngest just graduated from one of these schools (Barnard), and we paid less than $30,000 a year. It was dramatically less expensive than any of the state schools that offered both of her majors (no in-state option). And it was the second cheapest of all of her acceptances.

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It obviously depends on circumstances, but for most people, no. Attending your local Community College with transfer agreements to a state college is usually the best option. If offered, look into a 4+1 Master’s.

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There will always be families who want their kids to attend these schools and who can afford to pay the going rate. These people will continue to accept the increases. As the divide between rich and poor expands, with fewer people amassing more wealth, the pool of people who can afford to pay full price will dwindle. Those who can, will, though. There just won’t be as many who can, which will have an impact on the school.

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For who? That is a sweeping generalization. That works for some people and for some degrees, but not for others.

For example, for engineering this is extremely difficult, since CCs do not provide engineering classes, and it is pretty difficult to do all of these very challenging classes within two years.

That’s true too. For families who make up to median income for a family of four, and sometimes up to the top 20% by income, the cost of these colleges can be far cheaper than colleges with official price tags of $50K.

However, people in the top 15%-20% and wealthier will generally pay more for one of these colleges than they would for their own flagship, but not for an expensive OOS flagship, unless they get merit-based funding, or qualify for in-state tuition.

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I don’t think a family that was willing to pay $80k/yr will balk at $100k. And I assume that those that received $60k in need based aid when tuition was $80k will now get $80k-ish so still will be responsible for $20 -24k (inflation, they may have to pay a little more just like we all have to pay a little more).

It is the family that received $40k in aid when the tuition was $80k and who had saved $40k per year will have to decide if they can come up with another $20k if the aid remains at $40k but COA goes up to $100k. Is $100k a bridge too far? It may be for a lot of people. It may depend on the stock market. It may depend on whether a grandparent suddenly contributes. Or as they say on The Price is Right, “THAT’S TOO MUCH!”

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I’m comfortable saying that an undergraduate education is not worth $100,000. Some people may choose to pay that amount for the prestige of the college, because they can afford to send their child to their dream school, or for other personal reasons. Those are valid choices, but in those cases they are paying for something beyond the education itself.

At the undergraduate level, there is a limit to how much the educational product can be improved. Chem 101 is Chem 101. The instruction itself cannot be improved enough to justify that cost. I think there are PhD programs that might be worth that cost, say if you can work in a Nobel Prize winner’s chemistry lab. Thankfully PhD programs are typically funded.

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Some community colleges do offer some frosh/soph level engineering courses.

However, starting at community college does mean having to go through another admission process to transfer to a university, and having to “catch up” on frosh/soph level courses for the major that were not offered at the community college. Students who are advanced in some subject would not be able to take upper level courses in that subject before transfer.

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Often the admissions process at a community college is pretty simple so applying for the transfer may be the first full application cycle.

Some community colleges are affiliated with 4-year colleges and allow some cross registration. UF, FSU and UCF all have community colleges nearby with transfer options. The cc students can even live in (some) dorms and participate in some student activities at the 4 year schools. Denver Community College shares a campus with Metro State University and CU-Denver, and both have engineering. Students can cross register, although I’m not sure for all majors or classes. Metro and DCC both have great financial aid, so students take advantage of that.

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Getting a degree, in general, is super valuable for long term earnings. IMO it’s almost never worth $100K per year unless paying that creates no financial burden at all. I don’t necessarily think the cheapest college is always the way to go. People often say “I’ve hired people from/my kid went to cheapo-U” and they earn the same amount as kids who graduated from “super-expensive-designer-U” and there is no doubt that is true in some cases. And in some cases kids who graduate from “cheapo-U” do better than “super-expensive-designer-U” grads. I don’t really think you can generalize there…each person’s experience and outcome is different, and there is not way to control for all the variables.

Most colleges can present a wide array of opportunities for learning and personal growth. I think these things are important:

  1. Going to college and graduating often helps immensely in expanding opportunities.

  2. Going to a school where a student feels empowered to thrive is critical. This highly personal variable does not necessarily correlate to cost at all. Some can thrive anywhere. Some need to find just the right place (it may or may not be a $100K school). Sometimes you can’t afford to go to a school where you feel you would potentially thrive best. In most cases you should still go to school somewhere you can afford, but it doesn’t mean finding the place you thrive is totally irrelevant.

  3. To the greatest extent possible students and families should seek to avoid or minimize student loans. It’s not always possible to avoid them completely but you should try. If you can afford $X amount without loans and without undue financial burden on your familiy, then there is nothing at all wrong with spending that amount on college. Some of the perks of expensive schools are “nice to have” and not “essential”. That’s doesn’t make those perks bad. They can be great! If you can afford it - enjoy!

  4. IMO an important part of the value of attending an elite institution is that it helps you develop a network of high achievers who expect themselves and their peers to excel. Of course you can develop that type of network anywhere. But there is no question it’s handed to you more directly at schools that are full of high achieving children of high achieving parents. IN GENERAL, students from higher income families already have greater access to this type network regardless of where they attend college. Students from lower income familines IN GENERAL have less access to this type of network without attending an elite school. Middle class students…are in the middle. So it can be espeically beneficial for students from low-resource backgrounds to attend elite institutions to develop these networks and surround themselves with people who expect them to succeed. This is a major reason I’m glad that so many elite insitutions have dramatically expanded financial aid for lower and middle income families. I’m sure some will disagree and that’s fine. That was my experience as a formerly lower income student who graduated from two Ivies. And now, as a higher income parent, it’s one reason I’m happy to pay higher tuition to support better financial aid.

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So here is one way to think about it.

A couple premises.

Money parents pay for college out of savings isn’t available for their own retirements.

That $100K COA is pretty “all-inclusive”. It doesn’t cover breaks and summers, of course, but often students end up either self-sufficient in summers, or at least the marginal costs to the parents aren’t high. So for simplicity we can treat that as a total annual spend.

OK, I believe the average US retired married couple currently annually spends around $84K total, so like $42K each. $100K on a kid would thus seem rather generous.

But realistically, that couple likely wasn’t full pay.

OK, so what is a full pay couple looking to spend in retirement? Well, that depends, obviously, but I think if you fully account for things like SS, what it takes in income and/or assets to be full pay, and assume some more time for accumulating retirement savings after college is over, you are probably looking at this couple being able to annually spend more than $100K each. And of course the more they are above the line, the more that goes up.

So, that sort of explains what is going on here with the pricing. If you value marginal spending on yourselves and your college-aged kids around the same, then being willing to spend at these levels on your kids isn’t an obviously bad idea. The useful degree part of it is nice, but not really even critical to this analysis. You can just think about the experience alone, and the question is why cut their annual experience budget just to further increase your own?

People will sometimes complain this is treating college like a vacation. Well, what is your retirement? Again, if you are full pay, that’s basically the buckets you are working with.

Unless you want to give a lot away to charity.

But assuming not, it is a question of more luxury spending on the parents, or more luxury spending on the kids. And the kids getting a $100K annual budget each may not even be as high as what these parents are planning for their own annual budgets.

And so is their college experience worth it? Well, is your retirement experience worth it? I think you could have similar answers to both questions.

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