You may have read recently that Duke is the 27th most expensive college in the U.S.
But what you read was probably inaccurate.
Every year, several publications release lists of the nation’s most expensive colleges to compare the costs of schools across the country. But these publications often have difficulty finding a common metric to use for their cost comparisons.
This year, CampusGrotto.com’s “100 Most Expensive Colleges” list shows flaws in its information as a result of neglected data.
The list, titled “Colleges with the Highest Total Cost 2009-10,” compiles its rankings by calculating each college’s total for tuition, room and board, according to the CampusGrotto Web site.
These calculations misrepresent schools that publicly report fees—such as health insurance and student services costs—as part of their tuition prices.
Currently, CampusGrotto reports Duke’s total cost as $50,250 annually. A note at the end of the rankings states that CampusGrotto did not include fees in its calculations.
If calculated without fees, Duke tuition is $37,485, according to Bursar statements. Duke’s financial aid Web site estimates a total of $11,170 for room and board, bringing the University’s total cost to $48,655. This would place Duke at No. 73 on CampusGrotto’s current list, not No. 27.
CampusGrotto is not the only publication that is inconsistent in tuition reporting.
Last year, BusinessWeek posted its “50 Most Expensive Colleges Slideshow,” which featured a list of colleges ranked in order of cost, calculated by adding tuition, selected fees and room and board for the 2008-2009 academic year. But BusinessWeek did not clarify which fees it included in each college’s total.
Alison Damast, a staff writer for BusinessWeek, said the information for the slideshow was gathered and put together by interns. Duke was not included in BusinessWeek’s slideshow.
“The data on fees was data we got from The Chronicle of Higher Education. We got the information from their Web site,” Damast said. “I don’t think we distinguished fees.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education gathered its data in a similar way.
“The College Board produced and controls [this] data,” said Jeffrey Brainard, manager of editorial research for The Chronicle of Higher Education. “The Chronicle provides [this] data in an online table.”
Despite the lists’ inconsistencies, Christoph Guttentag, dean of Duke’s undergraduate admissions, said the lists only play a small role in where students choose to apply.
“My take on this is that nobody thinks that the most selective private colleges and universities are cheap,” Guttentag said. “It irks me when the actual cost of an institution is misrepresented by this list. It’s either lazy or disingenuous on the part of the people putting together the list or it’s disingenuous on the part of the people providing the information.”
Regardless of its place on any list, Duke can take pride in its honesty, Guttentag added.
“People play it really straight at Duke,” he said. “When we make information about admissions or cost public, we don’t try to present ourselves as something other than we are.”