For the record, I’m not American nor live in the US, but I have a 19-year-old son who started attending the University of Chicago this year, studying economics. Just the tuition itself is $70k. My husband and I are lucky enough to be able to afford it - I still believe it’s an outrageous amount of money to attend college.
Then why didn’t you send your kid to school in your country? Americans do not pay $70k for undergrad tuition unless it’s a very expensive study.
(E: the OP corrected me below that theyre not from the Great North. Ill still leave this next part up to demonstrate that universities charge a lot more for international students than domestic but I acknowledge that I jumped the gun here)
The fact that you use the $ symbol, have socialized college tuition, and are not from the US makes me think you’re Canadian. I did the reverse of your situation and used this tuition fee lookup tool from UToronto to see what I would be paying for a year of medical school. Came out to a little under $46k/ for the 2025-26 school year.
Cause the quality is not the best, he wanted to go to the US, and we can afford it. Plus the US offers many more opportunities.
Sounds like you answered your own question there. Tuition for foreign students is expensive because the ones who come here almost always have family that can pay for it. Like I said above, no American is spending $70k per year for undergrad studies. The smart ones are going to community colleges, which are becoming free in some capacity across most states, building up a GPA, and then transferring to a University off scholarships.
I spent 7 years in school without paying anything for tuition, everything was covered by scholarships. I’ve known many people with the same experience
University of Chicago is a pretty prestigious school, too. Tuition-wise, it’s on par with Yale, Harvard, Stanford.
UIC is half of UofC. NIU and EIU are a quarter.
OP is asking why one of the most expensive universities in the country is expensive, and assuming that all universities in the US are that expensive.
That’s good. I’m glad there are ways for people to stay debt free or as debt free as possible. Since I always see student debt being a very big issue in the US in the news.