College tuition is not always what it seems

There are all kinds of colleges, universities and institutes out there. In 2009, within the United States alone there were almost 4,500 post-secondary, degree-granting institutions, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. These 4,500 schools can be broken down in all kinds of ways, depending on what you’re looking for. Two-year or four-year? Football team or no football team? Or perhaps, most importantly, public or private?

Public or private seems like a critical dividing line, because college is expensive. The traditional wisdom decrees that public institutions are much more affordable than private ones, and this is very often true if you’re going to a public school within your state.

However, if you really want to study somewhere, whether it's an out-of-state public school or a private institution, don’t be intimidated by the exorbitant sticker price. Private colleges may not be as expensive as they seem at first glance.

Harvard, for example, has a yearly sticker price of $54,496 for tuition, room, board and everything else. However, according to its website, “more than 60 percent of Harvard College students receive scholarship aid, and the average grant this year is $40,000.”

Brown University boasts nearly identical statistics, as does Columbia University. That means that students could pay around $14,000 a year to attend these pricey private institutions, which is far less than the nearly $30,000 out-of-staters will pay to go to some state schools…

Pretty awesome, eh? The reality is, generally, colleges and universities that have large endowments (which usually means famous or established schools), also have both the money and the motivation to provide financial aid to students who need it. These well-regarded schools churn out many financially successful graduates, who both donate and fundraise for their alma mater. In turn, the school is free to spend that income recruiting and retaining the best possible students, whether those students can pay the full price or not.

Keeping that in mind, it might pay (no pun intended) to look at schools that have scary sticker prices, especially in this economic downturn, when public school budgets are being slashed by decreases in state and federal funding.

Of course, going to expensive private institutions won’t always be the least expensive option. It’s likely that a public college or university will, in fact, be more affordable. However, depending on your finances and where you want to go, it could be very valuable to explore what you personally would pay at a certain place. One way to do this is to talk to individual admissions offices, and ask how much someone like you generally pays per year. You’ll probably need to know information about your family’s income, or your tax bracket, in order to get useful information.

Another option is a tool set up by the College Board. The Net Price Calculator tells you, based on some personal information (mostly regarding the amount of money your parents made in the past year), how much certain colleges will actually cost you. A word of advice: The first time you fill out the form for the calculator, it might be useful to have a parent around if you need to ask them questions.

In the foreseeable future, the price of colleges and universities will be a deciding factor for many students. However, regardless of whether your dream school has a low sticker price or a gigantic price tag, you should still delve deeper and find out how much it would cost you. Don’t cross a school off your list simply because its website says it’s an expensive place -- do a bit of digging into what it would actually cost before you decide whether or not to apply. You might, after all, be surprised.

Miranda Forman is a graduate of Brown University, with an Sc.B. in Cognitive Neuroscience and honors in Literary Arts. Out in the real world, she spends her days mentoring aspiring college students with the team of consultants at Admissionado, a boutique admissions consulting company that specializes in helping aspiring students navigate the undergraduate and graduate admissions process. You need advice on college apps? College life? Scholarships? Miranda’s your gal.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.