Stanford may be the cheapest school on the list

The average family there pays $12,136 a year. An out-of-state public can run $40,000+. Sticker prices are fiction — the discount is the whole story, and nobody puts it in front of you. I pulled what families actually paid at 571 colleges from federal College Scorecard data and lined it up against the published price. Free to check your list. (Note: that $12,136 is the average for families receiving federal aid — higher-income families pay closer to sticker, so run the school's NPC for your own number.)