College students stroll on campus at Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., Nov. 19, 2025.
Reba Saldanha | Reuters
This yr, Harvard University as soon as once more secured the highest spot of most fascinating schools, after being bested by Massachusetts Institute of Expertise in 2025, in response to a recent survey of college-bound college students by The Princeton Assessment.
Present school candidates named the Ivy League establishment as the final word “dream” college, at the same time as Harvard’s extended battle with the federal government and ensuing federal funding cuts unfold.
Most just lately, the Trump administration sued Harvard final month, accusing the college of failing to adjust to its investigation into the college’s admissions practices.
The ongoing legal disputes have executed little to tarnish Harvard’s popularity, in response to Robert Franek, The Princeton Assessment’s editor-in-chief.
“The added highlight on Harvard, significantly over the past yr, actually hasn’t diminished their model,” he stated.
Functions have solely continued to skyrocket, driving acceptance charges close to all-time low. Harvard’s acceptance charge was beneath 4% for the Class of 2029, down from greater than 10% 20 years in the past. Knowledge from the present admissions cycle will not be but obtainable.
Faculty tuition invoice sticker shock
Nevertheless, even over getting in, each college students and their households stated “sticker shock” was their greatest stressor in relation to school, The Princeton Assessment discovered. The 2026 Faculty Hopes and Worries survey polled greater than 9,400 college students and oldsters.
Certainly, the sticker worth is daunting: The price of attendance at some colleges now nears six figures a year, after factoring in tuition, charges, room and board, books, transportation and different bills.
Faculty tuition has elevated 914% since 1983, outpacing all different family bills, in response to a separate report launched this month by J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
“The most typical query I get from households is, when is it going to decelerate? Historical past has proved to us that it isn’t,” stated Tricia Scarlata, head of training financial savings at J.P. Morgan Asset Administration.
“There are at all times going to be folks that need to go to the Ivys,” Scarlata stated. “Our youngsters all have desires, and it is superb to suppose massive, however we’ve got to be life like — the debt persons are taking up is large.”
To assist cowl the rising value, most college students borrow to pay for school, which has led to ballooning student loan balances.
From 2005 to 2025, training debt surged 343%, and 97% of graduates with loans over the past 10 years stated the debt triggered them to delay main life targets, J.P. Morgan Asset Administration additionally discovered.
Though most of the nation’s most elite colleges provide beneficiant monetary help packages to make sure affordability for certified college students — with some even overlaying your entire value for low-income households — they’re much less doubtless to provide out scholarships within the type of merit aid, The Princeton Assessment’s Franek stated.
For instance, at Harvard, there are no merit-based awards, however tuition is free for undergraduates with household incomes of $200,000 or much less, in response to the college.
“The Ivys and plenty of near-Ivys are so aggressive that they needn’t give out merit-based scholarships,” Franek stated. “That stated, these colleges do meet 100% of scholars’ and households’ demonstrated monetary want.”
For a majority of scholars and their households, financial aid is the most important factor in choices about selecting the place to attend college and find out how to pay for it, The Princeton Assessment additionally discovered. The quantity of help supplied issues, as does the breakdown between grants, scholarships, work-study alternatives and student loans.
“With prices and scholar debt persevering with to rise, it is extra vital than ever for households to make knowledgeable decisions,” Scarlata stated.
Particularly as artificial intelligence reshapes the workforce and eliminates some entry-level alternatives for brand spanking new school grads, “households are wanting into what diploma will give my baby essentially the most incomes energy and what levels will get them a job once they graduate,” Scarlata stated.
Franek stated college-bound college students and their mother and father are paying rather more consideration to the worth of public versus personal schools. “There may be nonetheless a deal with model and popularity, however they’re extremely sensible about match and return on funding,” he stated.
A number of components — together with how a lot monetary help is obtainable and the way a lot college students should pay out of pocket, in addition to the selection of main, future earnings potential and the way lengthy it takes to graduate — decide a school’s ROI, in response to a 2025 research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
College students and their households are “considering rather more like shoppers and buyers than ever earlier than,” Franek stated. “Faculty choices had been an emotional choice, now it’s a monetary technique.”
