Cost of attendance · itemised
What is a college's sticker price made of?
Tuition is only part of it. Search any U.S. college to see its full cost of attendance broken into tuition & fees, room and board, books, and everything else — cited to federal data.
How we itemise the cost of attendance
Every component comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard (drawing on IPEDS), where colleges are federally required to report published tuition & fees, room and board, books & supplies, and other expenses — each split by whether a student lives on or off campus. We take the newest year a school reports components for, show each figure as reported, and sum them into an itemised total. We never derive a component by subtracting from a total, and never show a split for a school that doesn’t report one.
Scope & limitations
- Sticker, not net price. Cost of attendance is the price before grant aid. Most students pay substantially less — that gap is what the net-price tools show.
- Two different totals. The itemised sum and Scorecard’s reported academic-year cost of attendance are built differently and can differ by thousands of dollars. Both are shown; neither is adjusted to fit the other.
- Living costs are school estimates. Room, board, books, transport and personal expenses are the college’s own allowances, not surveyed spending — they can run low in high-rent areas.
- ~2-year lag. Federal cost data is historical by design; the year shown trails the current academic year and is stated on every figure.
- Coverage gaps. Roughly 3,300 of the 5,500 institutions we hold report a usable component breakdown. Where a school reports none, we say so rather than guess.
Sources
U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard (latest reporting year 2023, 5,509 institutions), cost fields drawn from IPEDS institutional reporting. Open any school for its full cost page and net-price trend.
Last reviewed: July 2026
Frequently asked questions
What is “cost of attendance”?
Cost of attendance is a college's full estimated yearly price for one student — not just tuition. It bundles tuition & fees with the cost of living while enrolled: room and board, books and supplies, transportation, and personal expenses. Colleges are federally required to publish it because it's the ceiling financial aid can be awarded against. It's the sticker price, before any grant aid, so almost nobody actually pays it.
Why doesn't the itemised total match the reported cost of attendance?
They come from different places in the same federal dataset. The itemised figures are the individual components a school reports — tuition & fees, room and board, books, other expenses. The reported cost of attendance is the Department of Education's own academic-year total, which is built on an average tuition basis across a school's programs and reporting years. We show both, and never quietly adjust one to match the other. Treat gaps of a few thousand dollars as normal, and the components as the honest picture of where the money goes.
Why do on-campus and off-campus costs differ?
Schools report separate living-cost estimates for students in dorms versus students renting nearby, because housing and meals dominate the non-tuition side of the budget. Off-campus estimates are the school's own allowance for local rent and food, not a market survey, so they can run low in expensive cities. Many commuter and community colleges report only off-campus figures; a few heavily residential colleges report only on-campus. We show whichever arrangements the school actually reports.
Should I budget for this number?
Budget against net price, not this one. Cost of attendance is the sticker figure before grant aid, and the gap between the two is often tens of thousands of dollars a year. Use this breakdown to understand what drives the cost and how much of it is living expenses you may control (housing choice, meal plan), then use the net price by income tools to see what students at your family's income level actually paid. For a personal figure, run the school's own net price calculator.
Related tools
For any U.S. college, the net price students at each family-income level actually pay after aid — versus the sticker — tracked and cited to federal data.
Open tool →Net Price by IncomePick your family-income band, then search any college to see what students in that band actually paid after grant aid.
Open tool →College Cost ComparisonCompare two or three colleges side by side — sticker versus net price, by family-income band, cited to federal data.
Open tool →Tuition Trend & InflationHow a school's published tuition has risen over time — and whether it outpaced inflation (CPI), cited to federal data.
Open tool →