Melissa Stanger and Peter Jacobs
With the start of the new school year comes an inevitable rise in tuition —and we're not just talking about the price of college.
This year, more than thirty private high schools in the U.S. are charging more than $40,000 in tuition, with the most expensive reaching almost $45,000 — more expensive than many colleges.
But with premium costs come premium perks like iPads, state-of-the-art athletic and learning facilities, and clubs for every interest imaginable.
We calculated the most expensive private schools based on day student tuition plus mandatory fees (including one-time fees, where listed). Boarding-only schools and schools for students with special needs were not included.
If you think we missed a school, tell us in the comments and we'll check it out.
The Branson School
Location: Ross, Calif.
Tuition and fees: $37,960
Enrollment: 320
Every student gets their own iPad at the beginning of the year to use in and out of class.
#49 Léman Manhattan Preparatory School
Leman Manhattan via YouTube
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $38,250
Enrollment: 530
A newly-founded school, Léman Manhattan Prep just graduated its first class of college-bound seniors this past spring.
#48 The Gunnery
Location: Washington, Conn.
Tuition and fees: $38,500
Enrollment: 295
Each year on Founder's Day, the school has the Founder's Day Regatta, a crew team competition.
#47 Thayer Academy
Location: Braintree, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $38,600
Enrollment: 479 (9-12)
Thayer recently opened a writing center, which includes trained fellows to help students with any aspect of their writing.
#46 Winsor School
Location: Boston, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $38,800
Enrollment: 430
Every Winsor senior does an independant study project on the topic of their choosing.
#45 The Harker School
Location: San Jose, Calif.
Tuition and fees: $38,900
Enrollment: 1,792
Taking advantage of their Silicon Valley location, Harker hosts an annual research symposium for students and professionals in STEM fields.
#44 Canterbury School
Location: Milford, Conn.
Tuition and fees: $39,050
Enrollment: 358
Canterbury has state-of-the-art athletic facilities, including a 25-yard indoor swimming pool and a 2,400 square foot fitness room with personal trainers.
#43 The Chapin School
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $39,080
Enrollment: 728
In 1901 Maria Bowen Chapin established Miss Chapin's School at 12 West 47th Street with seven teachers and 78 students.
#42 Noble and Greenough School
Location: Dedham, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $39,150
Enrollment: 463 (9-12)
The Noble and Greenough ("Nobles") campus is a techie haven, with 400 computers, 60 iPods, 25 iPads, 15 PC Tablets, 25 netbooks, 10 Kindles, four specialized computer labs, and 10 computer kiosks.
#41 Convent of the Sacred Heart
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $39,265
Enrollment: 690
Established in 1881, Sacred Heart is the oldest independent all-girls school in New York City.
Source: Convent of the Sacred Heart
#40 Brooks School
Location: North Andover, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $39,440
Enrollment: 375
Brooks' headmaster makes it a point to get to know the students. He's well known around campus for serving cookie dough at his house when he invites students over.
#39 Buckingham Browne & Nichols
Location: Cambridge, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $39,510
Enrollment: 519 (9-12)
Seniors and faculty perform comedic roasts of each other at the end of every school year.
#38 Choate Rosemary Hall
Location: Wallingford, Conn.
Tuition and fees: $39,650
Enrollment: 865
Choate no longer uses food trays in their dining hall, effectively saving a third of a gallon of water per tray and enhancing efforts to go green.
#37 The Madeira School
Location: McLean, Va.
Tuition and fees: $39,830
Enrollment: 306
Every Wednesday students participate in Madeira's Co-Curriculum Program, which offers a unique leadership opportunity for each grade.
#36 Avon Old Farms School
Location: Avon, Conn.
Tuition and fees: $39,850
Enrollment: 408
The all-boys school puts on its school plays with the students at neighboring all-girls school Miss Porter's.
#35 The Brearley School
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $39,900
Enrollment: 217
The top college destinations for Brearley seniors from 2009 to 2013 were Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth
#34 The Nightingale-Bamford School
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $39,985
Enrollment: 157
Nightingale-Bamford has a "pathbreaking" internship program that has placed juniors and seniors at companies such as the Metropolitan Museum, Tribeca Enterprises, and JPMorgan Chase.
#33 St. Albans School
Location: Washington, D.C.
Tuition and fees: $40,012
Enrollment: 279
St. Albans offers its own school of public service for a month each summer.
#32 Loomis Chaffee
Location: Windsor, Conn.
Tuition and fees: $40,100
Enrollment: 650
Loomis Chaffee is the alma mater of many notable alumni, including philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, former New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, and fashion designer Jason Wu.
#31 Columbia Prep
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $40,140
Enrollment: 641 (9-12)
Columbia Prep typically has an outside speaker at their commencement ceremony. This year they hosted CNN president Jeff Zucker.
#30 Groton School
Location: Groton, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $40,150
Enrollment: 372
Forty percent of Groton graduates go on to pursue careers in business; another 20 percent go into legal fields.
#29 The Dalton School
The Dalton School
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $40,220
Enrollment: 1,300
Even though they're a city campus, Dalton is the only independent high school in Manhattan that fields a football team.
#28 The Governor's Academy
Location: Byfield, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $40,300
Enrollment: 390
While the school admits both day and boarding students, the Governor's Academy is the "oldest continuously operating boarding school in the United States."
#27 Beaver Country Day School
Courtesy of Beaver County Day School
Location: Chestnut Hill, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $40,349
Enrollment: 452
Students have the option of spending a trimester in the NuVu Studio program, doing hands-on learning projects in partnership with PhD students and faculty from MIT.
#26 Cate School
Location: Carpinteria, Calif.
Tuition and fees: $40,350
Enrollment: 265
The outdoors are a huge part of learning at Cate School, and students regularly go kayaking, surfing, mountain biking, and rock climbing.
#25 Milton Academy
Location: Milton, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $40,550
Enrollment: 680
Milton Academy is known for cultivating some of the brightest young minds in the country; about 25 percent of graduates from the class of 2013 went to Ivy League schools.
#24 The Cambridge School of Weston
Location: Weston, Mass
Tuition and fees: $40,650
Enrollment: 335
Students can travel to Quebec City and Paris to study French, or to Shanghai and Hangzhou to study Mandarin or traditional Peking Opera.
#23 St. Mark's School
Tuition and fees: $40,700
Enrollment: 347
Since its founding in 1865, St. Mark's facilities have grown from a single schoolhouse to a sprawling 250-acre campus.
#22 The Hewitt School
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $40,900
Enrollment: 525
Hewitt started in New York City during the 1920s as an exclusive co-ed kindergarten run by British educator Caroline D. Hewitt.
#21 The Spence School
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $41,110
Enrollment: 223
Spence is home to many famous alumni, including Gwyneth Paltrow and Emmy Rossum, and has also starred in exterior shots when filming the TV show "Gossip Girl."
#19 The Browning School (tie)
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $41,200
Enrollment: 120
Over the past 50 years, Browning has doubled the size of its student body, as well as added a new library, four new science laboratories, and two new art studios.
#19 Collegiate School (tie)
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $41,200
Enrollment: 225 (9-12)
The boys take mandatory subjects as underclassmen so that by their senior year they have the freedom to study whatever they want.
#18 Dana Hall School
Location: Wellesley, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $41,250
Enrollment: 356 (9-12)
Dana Hall is one of just a few private schools in New England to offer a comprehensive equestrian riding program. Students can even take riding lessons to meet their phys-ed requirements.
#17 Newton Country Day School
Location: Newton, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $41,325
Enrollment: 411
The girls at Newton Country Day School can skate for sport or leisure on a brand new ice hockey rink. The rink also has public skating hours, so non-students can use it too.
#16 Trinity School
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $41,370
Enrollment: 960
Trinity School has 2 libraries, 22 varsity sports, and 6 art studios. Languages taught are Chinese, French, German, Latin, Greek, Spanish, and Russian.
#15 Ethical Culture Fieldston School
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $41,400
Enrollment: 600 (9-12)
Fieldston has over 50 student-run clubs, independent senior study projects, and semesters abroad to the Mountain School and Maine Coast Semester.
#14 Kent School
Location: Kent, Conn.
Tuition and fees: $41,650
Enrollment: 565
Every Kent student has an on-campus job, whether it's leading campus tours for prospective students, fixing computers, or working in the dining hall.
#13 Miss Porter's School for Girls
Location: Farmington, Conn.
Tuition and fees: $41,780
Enrollment: 306
Day students get all of the same perks that boarding students do, and they often return to campus on the weekends for social events, sports games, and club activities.
#12 Middlesex School
TheMiddlesexSchool via YouTube
Location: Concord, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $41,800
Enrollment: 375
Middlesex has more than 50 student-run clubs and organizations for every interest, including a Harry Potter club, a flash mob club, and a "politically incorrect" debate club.
#11 Marymount School of New York
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $41,865
Enrollment: 706
Marymount's historic Beaux Arts buildings are directly across from New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central Park.
#10 The Foxcroft School
Location: Middleburg, Va.
Tuition and fees: $41,980
Enrollment: 160
Foxcroft has an interactive whiteboard in each classroom, an animal room in the science wing, and an observatory that houses multiple high-powered telescopes, and astrophotography and solar-observing accessories.
#9 Horace Mann School
Location: Bronx, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $42,100
Enrollment: 756 (9-12)
In 1965 the school established the John Dorr Nature Laboratory in Connecticut, a place where students take field trips for overnight camping, outdoor activities, and to learn about green energy solutions.
#8 The Berkshire School
Location: Sheffield, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $42,150
Enrollment: 391
Berkshire's eight-acre solar installation accounts for 40% of the school's electricity needs, and provides an energy laboratory for students.
#7 Concord Academy
Location: Concord, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $42,200
Enrollment: 381
Concord preps its students well for the SATs—students have average scores of 2000.
#6 Lawrence Academy
Location: Groton, Mass.
Tuition and fees: $42,280
Enrollment: 399
Aside from the gorgeous views of central Massachusetts, Lawrence Academy makes multiple state-of-the-art science and language labs available to its students.
#5 The Hotchkiss School
Location: Lakeville, Conn.
Tuition and fees: $42,445
Enrollment: 600
Hotchkiss allows students to participate in off-campus semester programs offered in France, Italy, China, Spain, and South Africa.
#4 Salisbury School
Location: Salisbury, Conn.
Tuition and fees: $42,550
Enrollment: 309
The Salisbury student body gathers together once every day, including twice-weekly family style dinners with faculty members and students.
#3 Riverdale Country School
Location: Bronx, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $43,000
Enrollment: 1,050
Riverdale's 27.5-acre campus is the largest in the New York City area.
#2 Birch Wathen Lenox School
Location: New York, N.Y.
Tuition and fees: $43,497
Enrollment: 575
The school launched a science initiative two years ago, including seminars on Women in Science Education and college-level research opportunities.
#1 The Lawrenceville School
Location: Lawrenceville, N.J.
Tuition and fees: $44,885
Enrollment: 816
Boarding and day students alike are part of Lawrenceville's House System, which offers increasing freedom and independence as students move up grades.
