Being able to pay for something eventually is not a reasonable way to decide what you can afford. Try a mortgage calculator and see how much you can "afford" by that definition. It's insane. Nobody should dedicate half their life to paying off college unless the whole purpose of college for them is to land a high-paying job afterwards. $120k (fifteen years ago) might be a reasonable fee for meeting a bunch of rich people and getting insane management or banking job offers afterwards, but I wasn't interested in that.