It depends heavily on where you go, but large and popular public schools can still be very expensive in the US. Here's an example of the cost breakdown at one s

It depends heavily on where you go, but large and popular public schools can still be very expensive in the US. Here's an example of the cost breakdown at one such school: http://admissions.missouri.edu/costs-and-aid/costs/index.php http://admissions.missouri.edu/costs-and-aid/costs/index.php Even more popular public schools like UCLA tend to be about $10k/year more: http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/budget.htm http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/budget.htm Just to give you an idea of the cost of, say, Harvard... https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works/cost-attendance https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works/cost... Do note that extremely wealthy private institutions like Harvard tend to be correspondingly generous with financial aid, so the number there is likely not representative of what you'd actually pay unless you came from a very rich family (as a fair number of Harvard students do).