College sticker prices top $100,000 at 16 schools for 2026-27
People walk next to Duke Chapel on the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, USA
Jim R. Borders | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The annual cost of education at more than a dozen colleges now reaches six figures when accounting for tuition, fees, room and board, books, transportation and other expenses.
According to data provided exclusively to CNBC from The Princeton Review’s upcoming “The 392 Best Colleges” report, 16 institutions have a sticker price of more than $100,000 for the 2026-27 academic year, including Duke, Georgetown, New York University and the University of Chicago. list. Others, like Brown University, Northwestern and Pepperdine, cost more than $99,000.
As more schools cross over $100,000 thresholdOthers will follow, according to Jeff Selingo, author of “Dream School.”
“We keep going up and it never stops,” he said.
“We’ve been moving toward that six-figure price tag for a long time, and now we’re here — and for a lot of people, that’s a big deal,” Selingo said.
He added that some students and their families have reached breaking point, and as a result, smaller liberal arts colleges have begun to lose ground to larger, less expensive public schools. “There’s a group of institutions that used to commandeer their prices without a hitch, and now they’re seeing students and families step back,” Selingo said.
Selingo said the high cost of college is discouraging some students from expensive private schools, leading more and more students to question the return on investment.
“The cost of college is significant—there is no doubt about that,” said Robert Franek, editor-in-chief of The Princeton Review, “and with sticker prices for some schools exceeding $100,000, paying for college seems even scarier.”
Ivy League exception
These days, only the Ivy League and the nation’s other most selective colleges and universities can escape uncontrolled price increases, Selingo said. “Harvard, Yale and Amherst will always find enough people to pay whatever it takes to get there,” he said.
But many of these top schools are directly addressing the college affordability crisis by offering more generous financial aid packages, some even covering full costs for low-income families.
With increasing university costs comes discounts
Although the college tab seems increasingly inaccessible, students and their parents rarely Many reports show that full price was paid.
“More and more schools are discounting fees,” Selingo said.
Average tuition reduction for first-time full-time students at private colleges, mostly in the form of merit aid as high as 57% for the 2025-26 academic year, according to a recent report by the National Association of College and University Business Officers, a group representing administrative and financial officers at more than 1,700 colleges and universities in the United States.
“This means that for every dollar of undergraduate tuition and fees these institutions may charge, they award roughly 57 cents of grant aid to first-time undergraduate students,” the report said.
In fact, Franek said, “The higher a school’s sticker price, the more generous the school is likely to be in its offers of scholarship awards to students it hopes to enroll.”
The average scholarship grant awarded to needy freshmen in 2026-27 from 16 schools with six-figure price tags ranges from $42,000 to $79,000 on average, The Princeton Review found.
“The data tells a clear story: Don’t ignore a private college because of its sticker price, because there’s a good chance you’ll get a grant from that school,” Kara Freeman, president and CEO of NACUBO, said in a statement.
A separate study by education loan lender Sallie found that families cover only half of college costs with income and savings. Scholarships, grants and student loans make up most of the rest, according to the annual How America Pays for College report.
