How the hell are they calculating food now? Are you required to have a meal plan? You can eat pretty well for under $5,000 a year even if you're going to the most expensive grocery store in Ithaca. That isn't bad for broke college student budgeting. I know this will probably be an unpopular opinion, but you don't need to be dining out every other night as an undergrad with no income. The housing figure is reasonable unfortunately. The health cost is accurate if you are on SHP...which honestly speaking is not a bad deal as far as the annual premium goes for a Cadillac plan. I once had a professor straight up tell his class to pirate the textbook. You are not going to spend $1,000 a year on books. I don't know how anybody is spending nearly $2100 on each year on transit. You really don't need a car as a Cornell undergrad, and Ithaca is very walkable, and a tcat pass is far cheaper than that. Even if you're ubering two or three times a month that won't do it. The miscellaneous is high but not crazy, but at least is something you can choose your own adventure on. More on reddit.com

The total cost of attendance at Cornell University is a combination of various components that include tuition, fees, room and board, books and supplies, personal expenses, and transportation. For the 2024-2025 academic year, the expected costs break down as follows: More on collegevine.com

Like many other universities in the US, Cornell has spent decades turning itself into a self-sufficient town with its own police force, gyms, cafeteria, power plant, health service, etc. Not to mention how every college got dozens of its own dean of xyz and other admins. It costs a lot of money to operate these infrastructures and pay all employees. Moreover, as colleges get more expensive, federal loans are made easier to obtain so students can still enroll. As federal loans are made easier to obtain, colleges also raise tuition, knowing that many people are willing to pay. You will be hard-pressed to find universities in Europe with their own police forces, powerplants, and other amenities that come with American higher education. More on reddit.com

Simple — there are a lot of people who have a lot of money. The vast majority of people don’t. But 1-3% of the U.S. population can afford to pay full freight. In a country of 320 million people, that means that there are literally millions of people (3-6 million, roughly) who can easily write a check for the full tuition/room/board and not bat an eyelash. The cost of attending a prestigious college like Cornell is not a factor for these folks; it’s only about getting admitted. BTW, $240k is low. Tuition room and board is now running about $42k/semester. So a four-year Bachelors degree now costs about $336k. More on reddit.com