That hand-wringing tends to focus on the full, published prices that — without inflation adjustment — have jumped more than 50 percent in the past decade. In particular, news reports cite the higher-than-average sticker prices at the most prestigious colleges, though those universities tend to give the most financial aid and the deepest discounts, too.

Colleges have tried to get the word out for years about discounting and net prices, but “it hasn’t been terribly successful,” said Richard Ekman, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, an alliance of more than 600 private institutions. Though consumers have access to vastly more information about costs, through federal reports and databases, and the net price calculators that colleges are now required to post on their Web sites, he said, “Much of the public has trouble trying to make sense of these numbers.”

Colleges could simply lower their prices and offset them by reducing discounts, and a few have gone that route, but it goes against the prevailing consumer psychology.

“Some segment of the public is delighted to know that it costs a large number to go there, but their own son or daughter has received a scholarship,” Mr. Ekman said.

But college administrators worry that they may be approaching a breaking point in their ability to keep raising prices, whether or not those prices reflect what most people really pay. And many of the less-wealthy private colleges feel threatened by the rise of inexpensive online courses and degree programs, and a decline in the college-age population.