10/06/2026
From Jeff Selingo’s newsletter this morning: Passing Six Figures
This fall, at least 16 colleges will cross a new threshold we knew would come one day but still is surprising: a price tag above $100,000 a year.
Driving the news: When you add in miscellaneous expenses such as books and transportation that the federal government requires schools to factor into financial aid, the colleges now part of the six-figure club include Duke, U. of Chicago, USC, Georgetown, and Amherst, I reported in my latest piece for New York Magazine.
85 colleges were already charging more than $90,000 last year so look for more entrants into the six-figure club in the next few years.
Background: It’s not just the number itself that’s fascinating. It’s what happens when institutions approach such a round number.
Consumers react differently to round numbers, even if, in reality, there isn't a real difference. Retailers know it. Home sellers know it.
That’s why several institutions are just below the $100,000 mark, sometimes by just a few dollars. Brown’s sticker price for 2026–27, for instance, is just $16 shy of the six-figure mark: $99,984. It allocates precisely $2,878 for living expenses,
Colleges have more discretion over cost-of-attendance calculations than many realize. Research has shown substantial variation in student expense allowances that aren't always explained by differences in local cost of living.
Why it matters: In some ways it doesn’t. Four in ten American colleges provide a discount on their sticker price to at least 80% of students without demonstrated financial need.
That makes the advertised sticker price, whether it’s $100,000 or $60,000, less meaningful to families who know they won’t pay it, and many increasingly view it as a suggested price that they can negotiate.
At the vast majority of private colleges, about three-quarters of freshmen receive merit aid, regardless of how wealthy their families are.
Yes, but: Most of the colleges approaching or crossing the $100,000 mark enjoy enough demand to avoid widely discounting tuition, even as they raise sticker prices year after year.
We are seeing signs that families are pushing back. The evidence is still early, but it's notable:
🐦⬛🐛 Early Decision applications are growing more slowly than other application types.
📉 One enrollment consulting firm reports declining yield rates among full-pay students at some of the most expensive colleges.
Bottom Line: For decades, colleges assumed there was always another student willing to stretch financially for a prestigious brand. As sticker prices approach $100,000, that assumption is being tested.
Will prices just keep going up? I think this money quote from Larry Bacow, the former president of Harvard, says a lot: “There is no natural constituency for cost control on campuses. Universities compete by advertising their inefficiencies,” including small classes, hands-on experiences, and luxurious amenities.
And if the past is any indication of the future, they will: This story got its start for me 20 years ago, when I visited Bates College to report on a milestone that felt almost unimaginable at the time: colleges crossing the $40K all-in sticker price.
Then-Bates president, Elaine Tuttle Hansen, told me that while $40,000 wasn't necessarily the breaking point, somewhere there had to be a number where families would finally say, "Enough." Clearly, that point wasn’t $50,000 or even $90,000 because the all-in published price at Bates is $94,560.
