I'm not trying to assert that my experience was the standard. But the post to which I replied was asserting that the minimum cost was ten years of debt, which

I'm not trying to assert that my experience was the standard. But the post to which I replied was asserting that the minimum cost was ten years of debt, which is also not standard. From a financial standpoint, there's little difference (at least to my knowledge) between attending an out-of-state public school and an out-of-state private school. A more apt comparison would be looking at UW's estimate for Washington Residents who live away from home, which is $12K tuition and $27K estimated total expense ($10K of which comes from room and board. As someone whose alma mater quoted something like $13K for room and board, I can speak anecdotally that those estimates come from on-campus dorms & meal plans, which are awful; you're basically paying $15/meal.)