From the hugely popular New York Times “Your Money” columnist and author of the bestselling The Opposite of Spoiled, comes a deeply reported and emotionally honest approach to the biggest financial decision families will ever make: what to pay for college.

Sending a teenager to a flagship state university for four years of on-campus living costs more than $100,000 in many parts of the United States. Meanwhile, families of freshmen attending scores of selective private colleges will spend triple that―over $300,000.

With the same passion, smarts, and humor that infuses his hugely popular personal finance column in the New York Times, Ron Lieber’s anticipated new book, The Price You Pay for College: An Entirely New Road Map for the Biggest Financial Decision Your Family Will Ever Make, offers families a much-needed guide to help them navigate this difficult and often confusing journey, which has only been compounded by a global pandemic and the resulting chaos in higher education.

Lieber begins by explaining who pays what, and why, and how the financial aid system got so complicated. He also pulls the curtain back on merit aid, a complicated and often opaque form of tuition discounting that most colleges now use to compete with their peers.

While the price is essential, value is paramount. So, what is worth paying extra for, and how do you know when it exists in abundance at any particular school? Is a small college better than a big one? Who actually does the teaching? Given that every college claims to have reinvented its career counseling center, who should we actually believe? And how has – and should -- the global pandemic changed the definition of what it means to get your money’s worth out of undergraduate education? He asks the tough questions of college presidents and financial aid gatekeepers that parents don’t know (or are afraid) to ask and summarizes the research about what matters and what doesn’t.

Finally, Lieber calmly walks families through the process of setting financial goals, explaining the system to their children, and figuring out the right ways to save, borrow, and bargain for a better deal.

Ron Lieber is the author of The Opposite of Spoiled and is the “Your Money” columnist for the New York Times. Two of his books have been New York Times bestsellers, and he is a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award, business journalism’s highest honor. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, and their two daughters. For more on Ron, click here.

The Price You Pay for College gives parents the clarity they need to make informed choices and helps restore the excitement and wonder the college experience is supposed to represent for families.

About the Interviewer: Kristen Jacks is a financial educator and the author of Money in Your Twenties. Kristen studied financial planning at Boston University's Center for Professional Education. She started her career at Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine and later worked at Mutual Funds Magazine. Kristen is a graduate of Duke University.

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