In 18 Years A FORBES Top College Will Cost You Over $500,000

Whenever I see numbers like this, somehow I am a little bit suspicious (that is, is it too good to be true?) likely due to my previous experience as a paying parent. (Granted, it was before the “middle class initiative.” Maybe it is different today and these schools are indeed so generous today.)

When our kid applied to college, every college gave us a big fat zero financial aid and our income in the base year was not particularly high - close to the second lowest in this table (but it was about 10 years ago.) We were not trying to find a school with merit-based financial aid back then.