Though it was commonly held that George Washington University was the most expensive school in the country, that is no longer the case. You wont believe how much it cost to go to some of these Universities, and sometimes the “sticker price” isn’t exactly what means you’ll end up paying more. Hit the jump for more.
PaulDaPro
George Washington University was dumped from U.S. News and World Report’s latest ranking of top colleges Wednesday, because school officials have been misreporting at least one key piece of data for more than a decade. Quickly, Twitter and the comments section of my blog lit up with assertions that GWU is the country’s most expensive school.
Well, not really.
GWU’s “sticker price” — the amount usually published in those thick U.S. News guidebooks but hardly ever charged to the average student — for this school year is $56,310. That includes tuition, housing and most fees. Each year, the Web site Campus Grotto publishes a ranking of the “most expensive schools, based on the total sticker price, and recently ranked GWU No. 40.
Yes, yes, that’s a lot of money to fork over — and some would argue that ranking No. 40 in price and No. 51 (or nothing at all) on the U.S. News list doesn’t match up. But realize that dozens of other schools charge even more.
At the top of the “most expensive” list, compiled each year by the Web site Campus Grotto, is Sarah Lawrence College at $61,236. No. 2 is New York University at $59,837.
When just looking at tuition and fees, Campus Grotto ranked GWU No. 4, but that measure is seldom used when discussing the cost of college. GWU freshmen and sophomores are required to live on-campus, and nearly three-fourths of all students do so.
That’s sticker price. When you look at “net price,” which factors in need-based aid, GWU has a pricetag of $25,769. When Campus Grotto reordered its most expensive list and made a new list based on net price, GWU moved up the list to No. 37. That’s less than some other D.C. colleges. Georgetown University ranked at No. 25 with a net price of $27,477. And American University ranked at No. 2 with a $36,271 price tag.
Campus Grotto admits that this net price ranking only looks at the 100 schools that made its top 100 most expensive list. It notes that if it were to look at a larger sample, then a number of schools — including Catholic University in the District — would likely rank in the top 25.
