In case you weren’t already overwhelmed with thinking about the cost of higher education, The US Department of Education recently released its rankings of the country’s highest and lowest college tuitions and net prices using data from the 2012-2013 school year.

“These lists support our efforts to make college more accessible and to help families make informed decisions on the single most important investment students can make in their own futures,’’ said US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a statement.

The list includes the top 5 percent and the botton 10 percent of highest tuition and net prices.

The list, for four year schools, was divided into three categories: public, private for-profit and private not-for-profit.


One Massachusetts public four-year school falls on the list of highest tuition: University of Massachusetts-Amherst at $13,415 per year.

Massachusetts had no schools listed on the most expensive tuition for private for-profit four-year schools.

But, when it comes to private not-for-profit, there were quite a few Bay State colleges at the top of the list: Bard College at Simon’s Rock ($45,125), Williams College ($44,920), Hampshire College ($44,700), Tufts University ($44,666), Amherst College ($44,610), Brandeis University ($44, 610), Boston College ($43,878), Wheaton College ($43,774) and College of the Holy Cross ($43,400).

Massachusetts only had two schools make the lowest tuition list, both of which were private for-profit schools: New England College of Business and Finance ($7,875) and University of Phoenix-Boston Campus ($10,240)

See the complete list.