New England has some of the most prestigious universities in the country. Not surprisingly, it also has some of the most expensive, with Wellesley College recently announcing that overall annual costs for undergraduates will surpass $100,000 in September.
A staggering sum, but other private schools are close behind. At nearly a dozen universities in the region, including Harvard University, Boston College, Tufts University, and Brandeis University, the total annual cost of attendance will be well above $90,000 next year.
That number includes fees directly charged by the school, such as tuition and room and board, as well as projected indirect costs, such as textbooks and transportation, which may be paid to third parties.
Wellesley, for example, will charge its students $69,800 in tuition, roughly on par with Tufts, Yale, and Boston universities. With housing and meals, that bill rises to $92,440.
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With additional costs, including an estimated $800 for books, up to $2,000 for travel, and about $4,000 for waiveable health insurance, the total price climbs to $100,541.
Cost of attendance does not include financial aid, which for many families substantially lowers the advertised price.
For most schools in New England, total cost of attendance rose anywhere from 3 to 5 percent from last year, according to a Globe review of publicly available data.
The high cost has caused many to question whether a college education is worth the investment.
But even as experts warn of an impending “demographic cliff,” high school seniors continue to enroll at historic levels; next year’s incoming class could be the largest ever.
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And specialists note that most colleges charge far less than the top private schools and that only families with high incomes pay the full amount.
Phillip Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley who specializes in college access, said that while “sticker prices” have been rising for decades, even after adjusting for inflation, the average cost of attendance for most students has decreased by some measures.
“The existence of financial aid is sufficiently prevalent that most students pay less than the staggering sticker price that we see in the news,” he said. “What’s most important for people to focus on is how much do you have to pay to go to college.”
Nowadays, “considerably fewer than half” of all students pay the full estimated cost of attendance, he said. Even higher-income students, with little-to-no financial need, are often eligible for merit-based aid.
A number of schools have recently announced they will waive tuition for families below certain income levels. Most schools cap the threshold for tuition waivers around $100,000, though Harvard and MIT both offer full rides to students whose families make less than $200,000.
Because such schools offer generous financial aid, thanks in part to their massive — and controversial — endowments, they can, in some cases, be “considerably cheaper” than public institutions, which have lower tuition but fewer financial aid resources, Levine said.
For smaller private colleges with more modest endowments, it’s becoming even harder to compete.
“Across categories of institutions, the level of resources available are so different they can’t possibly compete head-to-head,” Levine said. “They have a very difficult time charging low-income students an affordable price.”
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Here is the full cost at a selection of colleges and universities in New England, according to their websites. Some schools, including Northeastern University and Emerson College, have not released their costs of attendance for the next academic year, but based on previous costs and trends, both are poised to hit the $90,000 mark.
Harvard University, Cambridge
Total cost of attendance (including direct costs and projected indirect fees) for 2025–26 academic year: $95,426
Boston University, Boston
Total cost of attendance for 2025–26: $94,427
Boston College, Chestnut Hill
Estimated total cost of attendance for 2025–26: $98,573
Boston College has not released indirect cost projections for the 2025–26 academic year. This estimate uses the indirect costs for 2024-25.
Amherst College, Amherst
Total cost of attendance for 2025–26: $98,733
Brandeis University, Waltham
Total cost of attendance for 2025–26: $93,686
Brown University, Providence
Total cost of attendance for 2025–26: $95,984
College of the Holy Cross, Worcester
Total cost of attendance for 2025–26: $90,605
Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.
Total cost of attendance for 2025–26: $95,490
Suffolk University, Boston
Total cost of attendance for 2025–26: $77,144 (on-campus students)
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Total in-state cost of attendance for 2025–26: $38,299
Total out-of-state cost of attendance for 2025–26: $61,741
Tufts University, Medford/Somerville
Total cost of attendance for 2025–26: $92,588
Yale University, New Haven
Total cost of attendance for 2025–26: $94,425
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Total cost of attendance (returning students) for 2025–26: $84,546
Wellesley College, Wellesley
Total cost of attendance for 2025–26: $100,541
Camilo Fonseca can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X @fonseca_esq and on Instagram @camilo_fonseca.reports.