Private colleges [1] often come with hefty price tags, which can be an automatic turnoff for prospective students, U.S. News reports. Close to 43 percent of incoming freshmen said they “carefully considered” cost when choosing which school to attend, according to an annual survey [2] of more than 190,000 first-time, full-time students by the University of California–Los Angeles [3]. For price-conscious students, the cost of private school can be difficult to reconcile against their less expensive public counterparts. Average private school tuition for the 2012-2013 school year was $28,946, compared with $8,176 (in-state) and $18,855 (out-of-state) at public institutions, according to data reported by 1,088 ranked public and private universities in an annual survey by U.S. News…