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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DC goes to college in 2026. How much does it cost for an OOS Top 50 school/yr ?( we will not qualify for aid)

I was budgeting $50K ( so $200K for 4 years) - but some schools have tuition alone at $50k ( eg UCLA is $46k) per year

So total cost seems to be close to $70k to $80k, which equates to $300k-$350k for 4 years.

Is that what others have experienced?[/quote]

Looking at schools around 40-50 rank, I do think some can bring it down to around $50k. DD was offered merit at Mount Holyoke and Dickinson to be about that (I think those are somewhere in the 30-50 range in the liberal arts ranking). Her favorite ended up being ranked in the 70s range and costs us $30k/year vs. $70k sticker price.

Universities in the 40-50 range are a mix, some give merit (Brandeis, Case Western, Tulane) that could potentially bring the cost down. But no guarantee they will offer the same 5-10 years from now. Merit is a tool to attract higher tier students and schools successful at that will rise in the rankings and eventually give out less merit because they don't need to give as much. College pricing is a game.

We gave our kids a max budget of $40k and we don't qualify for need aid. They had plenty of options they were happy with. Good but not elite-college-competitive students.[/quote]

We are in the same boat - limiting our kids to $40k/year.   I was assuming we are limited to in-state schools - I feel we have limited in options in Maryland though and have my doubts whether my kids will get into UMD.  Are there even any out of state options in this price range?  It seems like you would have to  applu to a well endowed private school and just hope that you reveive some merit.  We wont qualify for need-based aid.[/quote]

Private schools that give merit are definately an option.  Case Western gives good merit to many.  My own kid got $40K/year, bringing cost down to ~$40K total/year.  Go to schools ranked 50-100 and many will give good merit to bring costs ~$40K.  But you wont know until you apply.  So plan to use $1-1.5K in application fees, and apply to 15 schools, with at least 5-6 being safeties that traditionally give merit.  Then 5+ Targets that often give merit.  You can find affordable schools using that path
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Is there a reliable resource to understand which schools traditionally give merit?[/quote]

One good resource is the "Buyers and Sellers" list associated with the book "The Price You Pay For College" by Ron Lieber, which should be required reading for anyone with a high school student. Basically, it shows what colleges are "buyers", i.e. need to offer merit to buy higher stat students, vs. "sellers" who have a brand name to sell that people will pay big $$ for.  https://ronlieber.com/books/the-price-you-pay-for-college/

IME, many NPCs did not ask for gpa/test scores which means they aren't considering merit. For those, it's more cumbersome, but looking at their Common Data Set shows how many students w/out need got an award and the average amount. So, you can see if the class had 500 students and 3 got non-need money vs. 400 got non-need money.

There's also a long, ongoing discussion on College Confidential about colleges that give good merit awards. https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/colleges-that-are-generous-with-merit-based-scholarships/2105224[/quote]

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