Been looking into college costs lately and honestly the sticker shock is real. Tuition keeps climbing every year, but I stumbled onto some interesting data from a couple years back that shows there are still some seriously affordable options out there if you know where to look. The average in-state cost is running around 26k per year at most four-year schools, which is pretty steep. What caught my attention though is how much variation there is by state and school. Like, some places are charging less than half that. Found some wild examples - one college in Florida was under 8k total, another in West Virginia around 8.5k. Even some of the cheaper options in pricier states are doable. For New York specifically, if you're looking at cheapest colleges in New York, the data showed SUNY College of Technology at Delhi coming in around 22.7k combined for tuition and housing. Not the lowest nationally but reasonable for NY. Same goes for schools in Colorado, Nevada, and a few others - they've got tuition under 5k if you're willing to consider community colleges or smaller state schools. The catch is most of these cheaper institutions are regional schools or community colleges, not the big names everyone talks about. But if cost is the main factor, definitely worth checking out what's available in your state before assuming you need to drop 30k+ annually.