The most expensive colleges in the country are art schools, not Ivies

I recently stumbled across this handy tool from the Department of Education, which generates lists of colleges by cost. The schools that usually get dinged for high tuition (and as a result, scare off low-income applicants) are the elite colleges. But many of those schools are quite rich and distribute a lot of financial aid.

Here’s a list of the top 10 most expensive four-year private nonprofits, as determined by tuition sticker price:

Institution	State	Tuition and required fees, 2011-12
Columbia University in the City of New York	NY	$45,290
Sarah Lawrence College	NY	$45,212
Vassar College	NY	$44,705
George Washington University	DC	$44,148
Trinity College	CT	$44,070
Carnegie Mellon University	PA	$44,010
Connecticut College	CT	$43,990
Wesleyan University	CT	$43,974
Bucknell University	PA	$43,866
Bard College at Simon’s Rock	MA	$43,840

Now here’s a list of the top 10 most expensive four-year private nonprofits, after subtracting the average amount of government and institutional grant/scholarship aid at each institution:

Institution	State	Percent receiving grant aid	Net price after scholarships and grant aid, 2010-11
School of the Art Institute of Chicago	IL	100	$42,882
Ringling College of Art and Design	FL	77	$40,222
The Boston Conservatory	MA	65	$39,602
Berklee College of Music	MA	63	$38,814
California Institute of the Arts	CA	77	$38,802
The New School	NY	97	$37,779
Art Center College of Design	CA	66	$37,579
San Francisco Art Institute	CA	97	$37,527
New York University	NY	55	$36,834
Beacon College	FL	29	$36,032

Notice something? There’s zero overlap between these two lists. Also, seven of the top 10 most expensive schools are arts schools or conservatories of some kind.

Some other observations:

• Half of the most expensive public four-year schools by net price are in Pennsylvania. (This is perhaps related to the fact that Pennsylvania slashed state and local appropriations per full-time equivalent student by 31.7 percent between fiscal years 2007-2012, and now has among the lowest appropriations per student among all states).

• Many of the least expensive private four-year nonprofits by net price have a religious affiliation or mission (Berea College, Family of Faith College, Bais Medrash Elyon, Hobe Sound Bible College).

• Some two-year public schools are really expensive! The net price — again, after taking into account grants and scholarships — for Florida Keys Community College is $22,933. On average two-year publics remain a pretty good deal though ($6,711 net price).