Liv says:
Mon, 27th Oct 200810:42 am 

I go to # 6, Bates College and recently this year we had a huge spike in tuition, but it is definitely worth it in the end. We have an incredible faculty who is readily accessible, new living and dining facilities, wonderful student organizations (with decent budgets), and great college sponsored events. I love Bates and the education and memories that I have had here are worth every single penny.

Grady says:
Mon, 27th Oct 200811:09 am 

For some reason my college (Bennington College) wasn't on this list, even though it's tuition & room and board costs are $48,950 a year according to the college website.

But yes, I think it is worth it for the small class sizes, extremely intelligent and accessible teachers who are all currently working in their fields (a requirement for Bennington faculty) and a completely personalized education plan.

I think it honestly all depends on the school. Plus, I mean, I get A LOT of financial aid, so it doesn't end up costing that much more than a state school for me. If the school seems like a perfect fit for you I think the best choice is to go for it. Life's too short.

Stephanie says:
Mon, 27th Oct 200812:41 pm 

Absolutely not worth it if you're not getting financial aid, unless its for grad. school. Because quite honestly, no one gives a damn where you go/went for undergrad.

JJ says:
Mon, 27th Oct 200812:50 pm 

I go to BC and I have to say that the cost is wayyy worth it. Also, financial aid is fairly easy to get. I think where you went to college undergrad can help you on a resume but isn't the only reason to choose a certain school.

Jasmine says:
Mon, 27th Oct 20081:19 pm 

i go to nyu and i totally regret it. i love the school. love the people. i'm having a good time. i even have the money to afford it, but i realize now that i could have gotten a sound education and all the things that come attached with a college at a school whose tuition is half or even a fourth of the price. i could have done so much more with that money i would have saved, had i gone somewhere more economical. i urge people who are starting their college search to realize that it's not all about the name. i have friends who go to state colleges and i think that their education is just as good as mine.

Davis says:
Mon, 27th Oct 20081:44 pm 

I think your article hits on a number of way bigger issues than just "does $$$ = Good." It has to do with a number of social problems, one of which is class strife. Western nations, but particularly the U.S. has a huge gap between the rich and poor – and it's growing. This segregation is made worse by those ridiculously expensive schools – only the rich can afford them, so only the rich get the good education, which means only the rich can get the good jobs, because the poor are competing against these people with ridiculously prestigious education.

I just feel that if you're going to talk about something like this, you should delve deeper into the issues. After all, it's something that effects everyone – how many bright people are being denied a good education because they can't afford it? Or are shunned by their peers for going to college instead of university? I think tuition fees are a really good thing to talk about, especially on a site like College Candy, because it's something that a lot of people – particularly upper middle class students – are ignorant about. I know in Canada there's a strong student movement in order to get them lowered. So I'd be really interested to see an article written on the societal causes for this differences in prices, that expose the sinister reasons behind it.

Laura says:
Mon, 27th Oct 20081:55 pm 

It's for sure worth it. I have access to excellent housing, good food, great visiting artists/speakers, awesome profs, and (most importantly) classes that are smaller than 20 students. My school isn't on the list but the tuition is $40,000+. My parents grew up in trailer parks and worked their way up to the upper-middle class. One of the reasons why they worked so hard was so they could pay for a better education for their children. They /want/ to send me to a private liberal arts college so they pay for it. I still have to pay for graduate school but I should have my student loans paid off at least before I turn 30 and going to a pla college helps with graduate school admissions. Or so I've been told.

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Kay says:
Tue, 28th Oct 200811:49 am 

$ does not equal good… average tuition here in Canada is $4-7k a year. And yes, we have several highly ranking institutions – University of Toronto and McGill University (Toronto and Montreal, respectively) regularly rank among the top 25 in the world.

Liz says:
Sat, 8th Nov 20089:51 am 

1. The list isn't fully accurate. I go to Simon's Rock (#23) which costs $49,775 in full tuition for a first year student, not $48,460 as the website says. This actually makes us #4.

2. I'm on a scholarship that covers about half of my total costs, but it's still really expensive. In ways it is worth it and in ways it's not. I love that my classes are all really small (about 12 students each class) and my professors are all amazing and approachable. But most really expensive schools at least have name recognition and good assistance in finding a job after school. This is where Simon's Rock is lacking. No one has ever heard of us, We were founded in the '60s so we have an incredibly small endowment. If you're trying to get into grad school you'll get a lot of help but it's harder to find help getting a job. Every school has their pros and cons, and every school has their reasons for their tuition.

Coury says:
Mon, 10th Nov 200812:52 pm 

I go to the nations most expensive school — Sarah Lawrence College.

Oddly enough, I am a firm believer that higher tuition does not always equal better education, and that prestige does not always mean it’s worth it. What drew me to the college wasn’t the list of notable alums or the inter/national prestige. It was simply that I wanted to have as much control over my education as possible, and SLC lets me do that.

We don’t have gen ed classes, we don’t have tests, we don’t have grades. We take what we want when we want, we have individual study sessions with our professors, and we get written evaluations each semester.

I don’t believe in standardized test scores, and neither does SLC. Test scores are no indication of intelligence. I love that the school is writing based — a math class here is not only the math portion, but reading and writing about the theories of math, the origins of equations. In conjunction with just practicing math, you might read Euclid’s Elements and choose to individually focus on Pythagoras and his role as the person who discovered most, if not all, of the material in the first two books.

Also, of course, the environment is unique not only to college in general but to liberal arts schools specifically. I like being on a first name basis with my professors, or sitting on the North Lawn and smoking hookah with my Don. Not that you can’t find that anywhere else, or even that everyone smokes hookah with his or her Don, but the fact that it’s likely to happen here is something that I love about the school. The school is small and everyone is close and connected. You know and learn all the faces, all the names, and all about the people with whom you go to school.

The mix of international students is amazing, and while I can’t say it’s unlike any other in the nation (I wouldn’t know for sure) I can say it’s unlike any I’ve ever experienced. There’s diversity, ample opportunity to learn new languages, exercise your own knowledge of languages, and really tap into the cultures of the world. I speak Russian, French, and English — I’m currently learning Spanish and Greek. I don’t know of any other school where I could do this with such ease.

It all comes down to what you want from the school. I’m missing out on things I always believed were integral parts of college life – football games, Greek life, tens of thousands of students milling everywhere. But I’m studying under a brilliant writer, I’ve had dinner with Karen, the President, at her home, and I can carry on conversations with my all of my professors in at least three different languages. The money is worth it; I don’t know that it could be any more well-spent for my needs.

Beth says:
Mon, 10th Nov 20086:50 pm 

I, too, go to Sarah Lawrence, the most expensive school in the country, but what most people don't understand is why exactly it is so expensive.My school is not one "that charges extra for the name" like you say.

The reason Sarah Lawrence is so expensive is becuase, unlike most schools, it has very little endowment, and was founded without any endowment at all. Most schools are founded already having a large chunk of money to spend to get things running. The Lawrence family simply donated the land for the school, but couldn't any money towards starting it. We have had to play catchup. Schools like Harvard and Yale have billions of dollars in endowments. They could afford to not charge their students tuition for years and still run. I think its terrible that we get flack just becuase we don't receive as much outside money as other schools.

The majority of the college's budget goes to paying the professors. And I think it is worth every penny. I know that I am getting the best education I possibly could.I know all my professors by their first names. They know all about my interests and goals in life. So when it comes time for me to apply to grad schools, the people writing my recommendations will have known me for four years and will be trying their best to get me into the schools that I want. I can't imagine you would find that at too many other schools.

The cost is a big deal for me, being from a lower-income family, but the school realizes how expensive it is to go to college and tries its hardest to get students as much aid as possible.