The 15 Most Expensive Colleges For Out-Of-State Students In 2021

The University of Chicago is the most expensive four-year school in the U.S. File photo

Did a year of online instruction lead to lowered tuition at U.S. business schools? Not quite. Even though millions of students were forced to attend school from home instead of in person last year, college tuition prices largely remained the same or even increased in the 2020-2021 school year, according to new data from CBS News. Costs remained astronomical at 15 particularly pricey colleges.

Steep tuition costs may have led to several lawsuits from students and families who argued that the full college experience is necessary to justify the costs. However, a few elite schools — including Rice University in Houston, Harvard, and Stanford University, even raised their undergraduate tuition costs by 4-5% during 2020-2021.

Using data from The National Center For Education Statistics, CBS News ranked the nation’s most expensive four-year colleges by their published out-of-state tuition. Ace Cash Express, a financial products and services company, has taken the data a step further by adding the average starting pay for new graduates from those colleges.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO IS MOST EXPENSIVE 

So what’s the most expensive university in the U.S. for out-of-state students? The University of Chicago wins the prize. A student at the University of Chicago pays $81,531 per year. Meanwhile Chicago graduates average around $65K in starting pay, lower than all but six other schools in the study.

Columbia University is next on the list with an annual price tag of $79,752, followed by California’s Harvey Mudd College, part of the Claremont Colleges system, with a yearly cost of $79,539. Harvey Mudd is California’s most expensive college, and accepts only about 10% of applicants; however, its grads report an average first-year pay of $91,400, most of any school in the study. Unfortunately Harvey Mudd does not have a business major.

After Harvey Mudd in terms of expense is Northwestern University, home to the Kellogg School of Management ($78,654), and Barnard College, a private liberal arts college for women in New York City ($78,044).

See the chart below for more information.

Source: Ace Cash Express

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