College Tuition Just Got More Expensive—Again. Find Out If You’ll Be Paying More Next Year
Some college students will experience major sticker shock next year.
While experts still agree that college is a good investment, students and parents alike are starting to wonder if it’s really worth the cost of attending. Various colleges and universities around the country and releasing their tuition numbers for the 2024-2025 school year, and some of them are staggering.
Wondering if you’ll be paying more next year? We’ve got all the latest numbers, info on the FAFSA delays, and everything else you might be wondering.
Which schools will increase their tuition next year?
A majority of the schools with increased tuition for the 2024-2025 academic year are mainly private. Although some are considered elite, some are also pretty middling when it comes to reputation. The big headline is that some are charging a yearly tuition of $95,000.
And while this is certainly a staggering amount of money to shell out every year when it comes to higher education, financial aid is ready to step in. This means only a very small amount of people will pay the tuition posted on the college’s website.
These are some of the other schools with major price hikes coming for the 2024-2025 school year:
- University of Southern California: $95,000
- Harvey Mudd College: $93,000
- University of Pennsylvania: $92,000
- Brown University: $92,000
- Dartmouth College: $91,000
- Harvard University: $91,000
- Boston University: $90,000
How much will financial aid help with tuition costs?
While this varies widely on the school itself, need-based scholarships and aid, and a myriad of other factors, financial aid can certainly make a dent in the cost of tuition for universities.
Take the example of Wellesley College in Massachusetts. The estimated cost of attendance for the 2024-2025 school year is $92,000, but around 60% of students will receive some kind of financial aid. The average amount of that aid? More than $62,000. That brings the final cost down to under $32,000, which is much more expected.
But even so, sticker shock will likely deter most students from applying at all.
Phillip Levine, a professor of economics at Wellesley, explains, “The problem is that the sticker price is the easiest number to know. It gets the most attention.”
What’s the average tuition cost for the 2024-2025 school year?
The College Board recently announced their estimates for what cost of attendance will be for various schools next year:
- Private nonprofit colleges: $60,000
- Public out-of-state colleges: $47,000
- Public in-state colleges: $29,000
- Average unmet need for students at four-year colleges: $10,000
What about the FAFSA delay?
Amid rising tuition costs, students are still scrambling to figure out just how much federal aid they’ll receive for the next year. Thanks to the U.S. Department of Education’s botched rollout of the new “streamlined” FAFSA form, both students and universities alike are in the dark.
Aside from giving students estimates on federal aid, colleges and universities use this information to determine how much aid they can also offer students. The repeated delays and persistent glitches on the website are making the process much more exhausting than it needs to be.
Due to all the headaches associated with the new system, many students are deciding not to apply for aid altogether—even though they’re entitled to aid. All of this results in lower enrollment, which could in turn force some institutions to close.
