University of Dayton

The University of Dayton is a Catholic Marianist research university in Ohio, founded in 1850, and it prices undergraduate study in a way almost no other US university does. Rather than publishing a sticker price and leaving families to guess at aid, Dayton issues every admitted student a personalised four-year net tuition guarantee at the point of admission. The net figure for each of the four years is fixed upfront and cannot rise. It bundles in what other universities bill separately, stating that elsewhere lab, campus-life and programme fees can reach USD 20,000 over four years, and it includes health and wellbeing services in the four-year overview. Tuition covers 144 semester hours over eight semesters, enough for a major and a minor or a double major at no extra charge. For international students specifically, Dayton states that the majority receive an international merit scholarship on admission, worth up to USD 34,000 a year, but that it does not offer full-tuition scholarships. Its English thresholds are the lowest of any US private university reviewed here, and conditional admission through its Intensive English Program is available to applicants with no score at all.