College costs: What Long Island students are really paying

Lyss Ricciardi says within five minutes of stepping onto the Dickinson College campus in Pennsylvania, "I knew that I was meant to be here."

Her heart was set on the private school, even though it would entail owing more than $30,000 in student loans by the time she graduated in May, she says.

"I’m not super happy about it, but I knew what I was getting into," Ricciardi says. She expects to incur $22,000 more in loans during graduate school at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, where she is in her first year of a master’s program in forensic psychology.

By the time she finishes graduate school in 2027, she’ll owe more than $50,000.

Ricciardi says she thinks of money as "a renewable resource," that most of her friends have loans, too, and she expects to be able to pay off her debt.

The cost of college, like everything else, gets higher and higher each year. According to the Trends in College Pricing 2024 report from the College Board, average tuition and fees at public four-year in-state colleges nationwide is $11,610 annually; at private four-year colleges, it’s $43,350. That’s before adding in room and board, books and other expenses.

The good news is the majority of full-time undergraduate students receive grants and don’t have to pay the sticker price for school, according to the report. But even with that help, many Long Island students looking to get an education struggle to find ways to cover their remaining financial obligation. Close to 2.5 million student loan borrowers live in New York, and their average student loan debt is $38,751, according to the U.S. Department of Education Office of Federal Student Aid. That’s higher than what students from other states owe nationwide, according to the report. 

Here's how five Long Islanders are tackling the cost of higher education:

Jaeda Quiñones, 18, of Brentwood

First year at SUNY University at Albany studying political science

• How she got it down Scholarship and grant funds
• How she'll afford the remaining Loans and campus and summer jobs

"I’m paying for my own school. It’s a massive financial burden, I’m not going to lie," Quiñones says.

The sticker price of SUNY Albany for tuition, fees, room and board is $27,468 for the 2025-26 academic year, but state aid and a school merit scholarship reduced her costs, she says. She received a $4,000 merit scholarship from SUNY Albany and the waiving of some fees, an Excelsior Scholarship of $5,773 from New York State that’s given to SUNY students whose parents earn less than $125,000 a year, $1,000 from the New York State Tuition Assistant Program, or TAP, and several smaller grants. She chose Albany in part because of the opportunity to use the Excelsior Scholarship, which allows students to use funds toward SUNY or CUNY tuition.

She’s under pressure, she says, to maintain her grades. "If I slip up, my scholarship can be taken away. It’s scary."  

Quiñones did not receive federal grants, which are determined based on the parents’ financial situation. Says her mother, Yasmine Flores, 40, a single mother who does medical clinical research and also has a younger child, Mason Rodriguez, 14: "It was disheartening. I don’t make $250,000 a year. But it is what it is, this is the world we live in. My daughter needs an education; that’s a mandatory requirement within this family."

To cover the costs this year, Quiñones took out $5,500 in federal student loans — $3,000 subsidized and $2,500 unsubsidized. The rest of the money will come from a job on campus teaching yoga and fitness classes, and savings from her summer job.

One smart move Quiñones made was planning ahead for college by earning 32 college credits taking Advanced Placement courses while at Brentwood High School. She entered SUNY Albany as a sophomore and will finish her undergraduate degree in three years. She’s eliminated one year of college costs that way, she says. But she’s still got two more years to cover, and Quiñones says she expects to also have to earn a master’s degree, which she anticipates may require even more debt.

Megan Mancuso, 19, of Franklin Square

Sophomore at Hofstra University in Hempstead studying speech pathology with a minor in disability studies

• How she got the cost down Scholarship and grant funds
• How she'll afford the remaining Savings her parents accumulated in a 529 college savings account, other parental savings and a work-study job on campus and babysitting

Mancuso has a $35,000 provost scholarship, a renewable Hofstra grant of $2,500 and a needs-based grant of $4,000. She also has a federal work-study job in a dean’s office on campus, and she has worked a second job babysitting. She uses much of her work earnings for gas, car insurance and clothing.

Mancuso chose to live at home and commute to classes to avoid additional room and board charges. Mancuso says she would like to have the opportunity to live on campus; she says she’s on the wait-list to be a resident assistant (RA). At Hofstra, those students supervise activities in dormitories in exchange for free housing. "It would be cool to live there," Mancuso says, "but it’s very expensive to be at school."

She was offered the option of taking $25,000 in loans for the year, which could have covered her expected contribution, but her family told her to decline. Says her mother, Linda Mancuso, 60, a retired teacher: "We didn’t want to put her in that financial position or ourselves in that financial position. Life is hard enough; you don’t want to start off with debt on top of that."

Last year's tuition wasn’t as expensive for the family because Mancuso received a federal Pell grant for $7,395 and a federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant for $1,000. But this year, the Pell dropped to $1,000 and she did not get SEOG grant funds.

"That was a significant loss of money," Linda says. "We’re working people like everyone else. If we were really, really strapped, I would dip into my retirement fund and let her pay me back when she’s rich."

What helped Mancuso was the fact that her parents — her father, Lenny, 67, is semi-retired from finance and banking — had saved in a 529 college savings account. 

Arianna Savino, 20, of Roslyn

Junior year at Syracuse University studying communications

• How she's affording it Arianna’s parents are covering the cost through Parent Plus loans.

"I'm a part of the privileged few who don't have to struggle financially," Savino says. "I'm just incredibly lucky for my parents giving me the opportunity to attend college without having to worry about the financial aspect."

Savino has an older brother, and when he started college at Bentley University in Boston, her parents didn’t fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, typically referred to as the FAFSA. “I thought it was going to be too much paperwork, and I was going to be frustrated doing it,” says Arianna’s mother, Jeanette, 54, who works for a family business. She says she thought the family wouldn’t qualify for aid because the couple earned too much money; Arianna’s father, Jason, 50, is an assistant chief with the New York City Police Department.

However, they hadn’t saved much for college for either child. “Looking back, time just goes by so fast and the next thing you know they’re in high school and you’re thinking, ‘How am I going to pay for that?’” Jeanette says. So, the couple took out personal loans to help cover Jason’s first two years.

But when Jason was entering his junior year at Bentley and Arianna was about to be a freshman at Syracuse, Jeanette says she thought, “How are we going to pay $160,000 -- $80,000 a year each?” That’s when she filled out the FAFSA so that they could apply for federal Parent Plus loans, which can have a lower interest rate than the personal loans the family originally took out.

“We maxed out on both of them – $90,000 for each kid,” Jeanette says. Even Savino choosing to live in off-campus housing instead of a dorm didn't save them any money, she says. Repayment is deferred until after each child graduates, she says – so her son’s Parent Plus loan obligation, which she says totals $175,000, will begin in a few months.

“It seems like it’s going to be forever,” she says of repaying. “Ten or 15 years, something like that.” She’s looking into starting to pay the $140 a month interest on her daughter’s loans so interest doesn’t accrue while Arianna is still in school, she says.

She says paying for school is “very, very scary. As a parent, you try to do the best you can to send them to a good school.” The couple may wind up eventually putting their house on the market because they were going to downsize anyway and using some equity to help them repay the loans, Jeanette says.

Lara Papaleo, 20, of Babylon

Junior at Hofstra University in Hempstead studying English

• How she got it down Scholarship and grant funds
• How she's affording the remaining cost Her parents are covering her tuition and fees

"My parents really helped me out. I’m very grateful to them," Papaleo says. Her parents started 529 college savings accounts for her and her two siblings when each was born.

Those accounts got her older sister, Alessandra, 22, through expenses of about $85,000 for four years at SUNY New Paltz; she graduated in May with $5,000 left over that her parents were able to transfer to Lara’s 529 account. Younger brother Prewitt, 15, also has a 529 account that hasn’t been touched yet.

Last year, when Papaleo was living on campus, her costs were $78,509. She got a scholarship, but still had to pay $45,389, of which $18,939 was for room and board. She exhausted her 529 in the first two years of school.

This year, she decided to live at home, in part because she's had her fill of the dorm experience and in part to save her parents money, as they are now paying out of pocket, she says. "I made the decision to start commuting because of how expensive it is just to pay the tuition," she says.

Papaleo bought herself a car in April and pays the car payments, insurance and gas — about $530 a month — from money she earns from working two part-time retail jobs and occasionally refereeing soccer matches. She also tries to cover her own textbook costs.

She’s hoping she won’t have to take out any loans for school. She took Advanced Placement courses in high school that gave her college credits, and she is taking six classes this semester in hopes of accelerating her graduation date to eliminate at least one semester.

Says Papaleo's mother, Alissa, 55, a sales assistant: "The important thing for us is that they get their bachelor's degrees without any debt. That will put them in a better situation than their father and I were in for our degrees."

Papaleo's mother is studying for her own master’s degree at Hofstra. Her full-time job as a sales assistant includes a benefit of $5,000 a year toward courses; she’s studying marketing.

Lyss Ricciardi, 22, of Commack 

First year of a two-year, full-time master’s degree program in forensic psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan

• How she's affording the remaining cost Loans

Ricciardi is living at home to avoid additional room and board charges. However, she still expects to need $340 a month for Long Island Rail Road tickets, money for the subway and gas for her car to get to the station. She’ll work a part-time job to cover those expenses.

Before Ricciardi paid even $1 for graduate school, she was already $30,000 in debt from her four years living on campus at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania earning her undergraduate degree. Those loans were on top of what her parents paid toward university. The loans will be deferred while Ricciardi is in graduate school; she will pay interest on some during the deferment period.

She expects to incur $22,000 more in loans during graduate school. The sticker price is $11,090 but each student pays a slightly different amount depending on their credits, aid and program. She’s been working with a Long Island financial aid adviser named Daniel Bod, who goes by The Financial Aid Man, who helped her family fill out the FAFSA, and the supplemental CSS Profile required by some schools when she was an undergraduate. He’s now helping her manage her graduate school loan choices. 

All the loans make Ricciardi's mother, Jennifer, 55, a teacher, concerned for the financial road ahead for her older daughter. "I didn’t pay off my student loans until I was 41, 42 years old," Jennifer says.

Ricciardi’s choices have influenced her younger sister, Shea, 17, who says she doesn’t want to have financial obligations hanging over her head when she graduates from college. Shea is a senior at Commack High School and starts college in fall of 2026, and she is seriously considering how much debt, if any, she wants to incur after seeing what her sister owes, she says. She plans to be an elementary school teacher.

"After I graduate, I pretty much want to be set and not have to worry about paying back money," she says. So, among her choices, she is seriously looking at SUNY schools Geneseo, Cortland and Oneonta, where she can pay in-state tuition and, with the help of her parents, hopes to be able to graduate debt-free.