There is no shortage of conversation about the high cost of college, and for good reason. State universities today cost more than Harvard did in 1990. Harvard, meanwhile, now runs close to $60,000 a year before room and board — and still did not make Business Insider’s 2025 list of the most expensive colleges in the country.
Two Pennsylvania schools did. Franklin & Marshall and Haverford both topped $73,000 a year for tuition alone.
My son is a senior weighing his options for next year. My long-held dream of having a union plumber in the family has been dashed. Alas, he is considering a degree in communications.
Lately, the mailbox has become a daily reminder of just how aggressive college recruiting has become. Nearly every day brings another glossy folder or oversized envelope from a school eager to catch his attention — and, presumably, a large amount of money he does not have. One particularly enthusiastic college in Ohio is one gigantic postcard away from a restraining order.
He has already been accepted to several schools, ranging from small state universities to pricey private colleges. That should feel like the hard part. Instead, we have reached the stage where things become truly confusing: comparing financial aid packages.
One large private university, with a total price tag approaching $75,000 a year, offered a mix of scholarships, grants and loans totaling about $45,000 annually. That still leaves roughly $30,000 a year to cover — about what four full years at Penn State cost when I graduated high school a lifetime ago.
Two Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education schools accepted him into nearly identical programs and offered radically different outcomes. One package would cover his costs entirely. The other would leave him responsible for about $15,000 a year.
Then there is a small Catholic college with a total sticker price equal to both of those PASSHE schools combined — and an offer that would allow him to walk away, quite literally, making money.
All of this points to a bewildering mix of cost and value that defies logic. It makes buying a car seem as straightforward as putting a dollar into a vending machine.
Financial aid is the system of ropes and pulleys that allows more than 70% of students to access higher education. But even when stretched to its limit, it leaves gaps large enough for a young person’s future to fall into crushing debt. That should not happen to students with clear financial need — or to those who have demonstrated merit.
A scholarship should have meaning. Increasingly, the weight of college costs is turning even significant scholarships into little more than coupons.
Somewhere between the shiny brochures and the financial aid letters, families are left to make some of the biggest decisions of their lives with numbers that don’t add up.
The problem isn’t just the cost of college or loans that can last until retirement. It’s how difficult the system makes it to understand what that bottom line really is.
