What 15 Elite Colleges Cost by Family Income
A single average cost for a college is wrong for almost everyone who reads it. The same school can charge one family very little and another family close to the full posted price, and the gap is not small. This article publishes the figures side by side, split into the five family-income levels the federal government reports, so you can find the line that is actually about your household instead of an average that is about nobody.
The table covers every college in our catalog that admits under 7% of applicants and publishes at least one of the five figures — 15 schools. Average paid by students receiving federal aid, by family income (College Scorecard).
What each income level actually paid
| College | Family income under $30k | Family income $30k–$48k | Family income $48k–$75k | Family income $75k–$110k | Family income over $110k |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California Institute of Technology | -$2,133 | -$2,886 | $431 | $18,753 | $54,157 |
| Stanford University | -$2,536 | -$193 | $3,212 | $11,092 | $53,882 |
| Harvard University | $8,697 | $2,991 | $2,091 | $9,941 | $53,337 |
| Yale University | $17,633 | $15,626 | $17,943 | $12,558 | $45,951 |
| Columbia University in the City of New York | $4,570 | $2,275 | $5,866 | $11,782 | $50,621 |
| University of Chicago | -$1,264 | $914 | $226 | $12,602 | $48,524 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | -$2,533 | $93 | $1,480 | $11,555 | $48,479 |
| Princeton University | $41 | $352 | $1,217 | $4,478 | $36,094 |
| Northeastern University | $2,264 | $2,436 | $5,301 | $16,241 | $47,696 |
| Brown University | -$420 | $2,031 | $5,858 | $16,219 | $44,937 |
| Dartmouth College | $41 | $489 | $2,695 | $8,534 | $52,036 |
| University of Pennsylvania | -$3,012 | $316 | $10,439 | $25,476 | $55,972 |
| Duke University | $735 | -$361 | $5,706 | $17,100 | $54,230 |
| Vanderbilt University | $3,414 | $1,876 | $4,498 | $12,153 | $45,145 |
| Johns Hopkins University | $428 | -$213 | $4,179 | $14,591 | $37,774 |
- International students are not eligible for U.S. federal aid, so they are not in this cohort and typically pay closer to the sticker price.
- Some figures are below zero. Aid exceeded cost of attendance. That is not a typo and it is not rounded up to zero here.
The jump at $110,000
Read any row from left to right and the increases are gradual until the last column. All 15 colleges above charge the "Family income over $110k" group at least $10,000 more per year than the group one level below. The steps range from $23,183 to $43,502 a year.
This is not a quirk of the most selective schools. Across the 543 colleges in our catalog that publish all five figures, 137 show the same step of at least $10,000 a year into the top group. Two households on either side of that boundary are reported in different groups, and at most of these schools the reported difference between those two groups is larger than the step between any two groups below.
The bands are the federal reporting brackets, not a school's own policy: each column is the average for students in that income group who received federal aid, and a family sitting near a boundary is counted on one side of it or the other.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure above is published by College Scorecard, the US Department of Education's dataset, and each school's own page there carries the same five figures under the same definitions — for example California Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Harvard University. The columns run from "Family income under $30k" to "Family income over $110k"; a school that reported nothing for a group shows that, rather than a number borrowed from the group next to it.
None of this is a quote for your family. For a figure calculated from your own household numbers, every US college is required to host a Net Price Calculator, and the Department of Education indexes them at collegecost.ed.gov.
Left out of the table: Curtis Institute of Music — admits under 7% of applicants but has published none of the five figures, so there is nothing to show. No estimate is substituted.
Schools are listed most selective first, starting at 2.6%. Acceptance rates and published costs both change every year.