Tuition Transparency: Education Is Pricey As Ever

The U.S. Department of Education recently published the tuition costs of every private, public, not-for-profit, and for-profit college on their College Affordability and Transparency Center website.

The college cost navigator allows you to organize the institutions by tuition price and by the percent increase in tuition between 2007 – 2008 and 2009 – 2010.

The public, four-year college to increase its tuition the most was Northern New Mexico College, by 51%, and the private, four-year college with the highest increase was Wells College, by 67 percent. Still, Everest University-Largo, a private, for-profit, four-year college increased its tuition by 99 percent.

The five most expensive four-year, private, not-for-profit colleges are:

Bates College, Maine: $51,300
Connecticut College, Connecticut: $51,115
Middlebury College, Vermont: $50,780
Union College, NY: $50,439
Colby College, Maine: $50,320

We would hope the students attending these expensive colleges are making that money back after they graduate… But it doesn’t look like it. Recently, we looked at the college majors that have the best rate of return – and they don’t match up with the most popular majors at these pricey institutions.

Popular majors at Bates College include politics, psychology, economics, biology, or English and history. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, majoring in politics might get you a median salary of 49K, but psychology is the lowest earning college major on the list, averaging 40K a year – way less than one year of tuition.

Connecticut College students and Middlebury College students are most likely to choose Economics (median income 70K) or English Language and Literature (48K).