Biggest Gap Between Sticker and Net Price
The published cost of attendance is rarely what students pay. This ranking subtracts a college’s average net price from its full cost of attendance to show how much the typical aided student saves through grants and scholarships. The gap runs from $77,912 at the top of the list down to $1,541 among all qualifying schools.
We compared 1,557 four-year colleges with at least 500 undergraduates and list the 50 with the largest gap. The median gap is $15,032, and the school in 50th place still cuts $54,181 off the price. Princeton University ranks first. Massachusetts appears most often, 8 times. The median cost of attendance is $36,335.
A large gap does not mean a low price. Many schools on this list still have a high net price, because they start from a very high sticker price. Look at both numbers before concluding a school is affordable.
Use the gap as a reminder never to rule out a school on sticker price alone, then confirm the real cost with the school’s net price calculator and, later, your actual aid offer.
How this list is built
A college appears here only if it meets every condition below.
- Colleges considered
- All 4-year colleges (public, private nonprofit and for-profit)
- Ranked by sticker minus net price, highest first. Ties are broken by larger undergraduate enrollment, then by name.
- Main campuses only, with at least 60% of core data fields reported
- At least 500 undergraduate students enrolled (fall 2024)
- A reported sticker minus net price value (schools without one are not ranked)
- Data period
- Sticker minus net price: cost of attendance minus average net price, academic year 2023-24.
- Cost of attendance: tuition, fees, books, housing and other expenses, academic year 2023-24.
- Net price: average for students receiving aid, academic year 2023-24.
- Graduation rate: first-time, full-time students who started in fall 2018 (4-year) or fall 2021 (2-year), finishing within 150% of normal time.
- Earnings: median earnings four years after completing, measured in 2022 and 2023 for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 cohorts, in 2024 dollars.
- Source: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, June 2026 release.
Showing the top 50 of 1,557 qualifying schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table.
| 1 | Princeton University Princeton, NJ Private nonprofit · 4-year | $77,912 | $84,040 | $6,128 | 97% | $108,590 |
| 2 | University of Chicago Chicago, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $75,500 | $90,360 | $14,860 | 95% | $127,757 |
| 3 | Stanford University Stanford, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $74,026 | $87,833 | $13,807 | 92% | $136,959 |
| 4 | Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $73,744 | $89,590 | $15,846 | 93% | $101,204 |
| 5 | California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,811 | $86,886 | $16,075 | 94% | $152,843 |
| 6 | Bowdoin College Brunswick, ME Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,702 | $85,100 | $14,398 | 95% | $79,722 |
| 7 | Colby College Waterville, ME Private nonprofit · 4-year | $68,240 | $85,420 | $17,180 | 89% | $77,429 |
| 8 | Columbia University in the City of New York New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $67,882 | $89,472 | $21,590 | 96% | $115,519 |
| 9 | Williams College Williamstown, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $67,144 | $84,860 | $17,716 | 95% | $80,487 |
| 10 | Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD Private nonprofit · 4-year | $67,138 | $85,947 | $18,809 | 94% | $117,419 |
| 11 | Washington University in St Louis St. Louis, MO Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,702 | $88,488 | $21,786 | 94% | $95,899 |
| 12 | Harvard University Cambridge, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,474 | $85,540 | $19,066 | 97% | $134,794 |
| 13 | Rice University Houston, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,418 | $79,788 | $13,370 | 95% | $110,080 |
| 14 | Pomona College Claremont, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,015 | $85,300 | $19,285 | 93% | $77,544 |
| 15 | Grinnell College Grinnell, IA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,792 | $83,440 | $17,648 | 88% | $58,955 |
| 16 | Haverford College Haverford, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $65,068 | $90,382 | $25,314 | 90% | $64,523 |
| 17 | Yale University New Haven, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,523 | $88,300 | $23,777 | 96% | $112,971 |
| 18 | Amherst College Amherst, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,273 | $87,640 | $23,367 | 94% | $79,243 |
| 19 | Washington and Lee University Lexington, VA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $63,219 | $87,000 | $23,781 | 94% | $100,514 |
| 20 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,619 | $82,730 | $20,111 | 96% | $161,961 |
| 21 | Brown University Providence, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,464 | $87,648 | $25,184 | 96% | $94,678 |
| 22 | Davidson College Davidson, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,096 | $79,475 | $17,379 | 91% | $72,718 |
| 23 | Northwestern University Evanston, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,083 | $91,250 | $29,167 | 96% | $109,275 |
| 24 | Boston University Boston, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,883 | $86,285 | $24,402 | 89% | $83,615 |
| 25 | Emory University Atlanta, GA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,037 | $83,622 | $22,585 | 91% | $90,139 |
| 26 | Swarthmore College Swarthmore, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $60,954 | $84,103 | $23,149 | 93% | $65,618 |
| 27 | Wellesley College Wellesley, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $60,794 | $86,290 | $25,496 | 91% | $72,449 |
| 28 | Barnard College New York, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $60,738 | $89,538 | $28,800 | 93% | $72,527 |
| 29 | University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $60,329 | $89,028 | $28,699 | 97% | $124,586 |
| 30 | Carleton College Northfield, MN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $59,486 | $84,893 | $25,407 | 90% | $66,841 |
| 31 | Cornell University Ithaca, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $59,450 | $88,140 | $28,690 | 95% | $113,372 |
| 32 | Wesleyan University Middletown, CT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,843 | $89,020 | $30,177 | 92% | $72,119 |
| 33 | Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,780 | $87,499 | $28,719 | 90% | $92,943 |
| 34 | Mount Holyoke College South Hadley, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,485 | $84,926 | $26,441 | 85% | $54,450 |
| 35 | Smith College Northampton, MA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,451 | $86,030 | $27,579 | 89% | $57,618 |
| 36 | Colgate University Hamilton, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,284 | $87,070 | $28,786 | 91% | $77,917 |
| 37 | Dartmouth College Hanover, NH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,274 | $87,793 | $29,519 | 96% | $111,883 |
| 38 | Claremont McKenna College Claremont, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $57,651 | $86,500 | $28,849 | 93% | $110,798 |
| 39 | University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $57,560 | $90,300 | $32,740 | 92% | $95,739 |
| 40 | Duke University Durham, NC Private nonprofit · 4-year | $57,460 | $87,072 | $29,612 | 96% | $115,722 |
| 41 | University of Rochester Rochester, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $56,684 | $85,962 | $29,278 | 85% | $87,197 |
| 42 | University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $56,491 | $83,271 | $26,780 | 96% | $100,684 |
| 43 | Bennington College Bennington, VT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $56,337 | $87,284 | $30,947 | 69% | $38,899 |
| 44 | Albion College Albion, MI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $55,685 | $69,986 | $14,301 | 59% | $55,297 |
| 45 | Hamilton College Clinton, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $55,245 | $84,230 | $28,985 | 91% | $79,130 |
| 46 | Kalamazoo College Kalamazoo, MI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $55,136 | $74,208 | $19,072 | 79% | $55,566 |
| 47 | Berea College Berea, KY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $54,612 | $60,718 | $6,106 | 60% | $42,924 |
| 48 | Middlebury College Middlebury, VT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $54,397 | $85,880 | $31,483 | 92% | $71,188 |
| 49 | Harvey Mudd College Claremont, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $54,241 | $90,165 | $35,924 | 93% | $137,100 |
| 50 | Bates College Lewiston, ME Private nonprofit · 4-year | $54,181 | $83,532 | $29,351 | 90% | $70,028 |
States with schools on this list
Browse every college in these states.