Princeton is the cheapest Ivy for high-income families
Even though it has the third-highest endowment
People love to toss around scary numbers when it comes to Princeton tuition.
Numbers like $63,000 per year (including room and board), and $200,000 for all four years (assuming you actually graduate on time).
But while these numbers are daunting, they’re ultimately meaningless for individual students. At the end of the day, everyone ends up paying different amounts for a Princeton education.
With nearly 60 percent of the school receiving financial aid, we decided to examine what it actually costs to go to Princeton. Because the cost is largely dependent on your family’s annual income, we figured that would be a good place to start. Moreover, we wanted to investigate whether larger endowments translate to more affordable tuition costs. The answers were disappointing but not surprising.
Believe it or not, Princeton students pay just under $8,500 in annual tuition on average, according to College Scorecard. This makes Princeton the cheapest school in the Ivy League—and by a lot, too. Harvard comes in a distant second at $14,049 per year—despite the fact that they boast the largest endowment in the league with nearly $34 billion.
Princeton’s tuition is high, but most families end up paying well below the written cost
Princeton may be the cheapest Ivy on average, but how does that affect low-income families? For families with annual incomes below $30,000, Princeton is, on average, the fourth-cheapest Ivy behind Penn, Brown, and Harvard. Even though Princeton and Yale rank in the top three for largest endowments, neither rank in the top three for most affordable tuition accessible to low-income families.
Princeton ranks #3 for largest endowment and #4 for affordable tuition given to low-income families
On the flip-side, high-income families will find a better deal at Princeton than they will anywhere else in the Ivy League. Students from families netting over $110K per year pay an average of $32,418 to attend. This is the lowest average for that bracket of any Ivy; Dartmouth, by comparison, charges the most for high-income families at over $46K/year.
Princeton is the cheapest Ivy for high-income families