The number on the website is not the price
A private university's published cost of attendance — tuition, fees, housing, food, books and personal expenses — now routinely exceeds $85,000 a year. Almost nobody pays it. The average net price at Stanford is roughly $17,500, at MIT about $21,000, at Rice about $22,000. Those figures are lower than the out-of-state cost at many public flagships.
This happens because the wealthiest institutions run large need-based grant programs funded by endowment income. They set a high list price, charge it to families who can pay it, and discount steeply for everyone else. The list price is closer to a maximum than a price.
The practical consequence is that the most common financial mistake families make is self-selecting out. A family looks at $87,000, decides it is impossible, and never applies — when that school would have cost them less than their in-state public option.
How to calculate net price correctly
Net price is total cost of attendance minus grants and scholarships. That is it. Grants and scholarships are money you do not repay and do not work for.
Loans are not discounts. A financial aid letter that 'meets' a $40,000 gap with $27,000 in grants and $13,000 in loans has reduced your price by $27,000, not $40,000. The loan is a cost with interest attached, and packaging it as aid is the single most misleading convention in college finance.
Work-study is also not a discount. It is a job. It may be a good job, and campus employment correlates with retention, but treating it as a price reduction will make you compare offers wrongly.
Where to find real numbers before you apply
Every U.S. college that receives federal funding is legally required to publish a net price calculator on its website. The good ones ask twenty or thirty questions about income, assets, household size and siblings in college, and produce a genuinely useful estimate. Do this for every school on your list during junior year, not after you receive offers.
The federal College Scorecard publishes average net price by income band for every institution, which is more useful than a single average because it tells you what families like yours actually paid. A school might show a $30,000 average net price that breaks down to $8,000 for families under $30,000 of income and $55,000 for families over $110,000.
Be aware of two systematic gaps in calculators. They usually assume one child in college at a time, and they handle divorced parents, self-employment income and small-business assets poorly. If any of those apply, call the financial aid office directly and ask them to walk through your case.