The 22-year-old photography senior has taken out $150,000 in student loans, or about $50,000 each year for three years. Because he cannot take out student loans his senior year, his father took out an additional loan through a firefighter credit union and Fratantaro took a job at the campus bookstore to pay for housing and other expenses.

Still, he said his degree will be worth the cost.

“Once you graduate, you graduate with the name ‘Ringling’ and all the hype that surrounds it,” Fratantaro said. “It shows you had the willpower to go to the best school.”

Ringling College is ranked as the most expensive college in the country after financial aid, grants and scholarships are taken into account, according to education resource website Niche. But the U.S. Department of Education data used to calculate those rankings were based on information from the 2012-13 school year, and Ringling has dramatically expanded its financial aid and scholarships over the past three years.

(Click here to see the rankings: https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/most-expensive-colleges/)

Larry Thompson, president of Ringling College, said the amount awarded in financial aid and scholarships has risen 50 percent in the past three years from $6.7 million to nearly $10 million this year. About 93 percent of this year’s freshman class received scholarships or financial aid averaging $14,000 a year.

“Three years ago we had a very low amount that was devoted to institutional financial aid, that’s what made net cost much higher,” Thompson said. “We have changed that strategy and are now giving much more financial aid than we ever have before.”

The breakdown

With a cost of $45,462 after scholarship and financial aid during the 2012-13 school year, Ringling College, located at the intersection of North Tamiami Trail and Dr. Martin Luther King Way, was found to be the most expensive of the 1,656 colleges and universities across the country ranked by Niche.

That net price includes the cost of housing, food, books, supplies and fees.

Without scholarship or financial aid, it costs about $54,930 per year for Ringling students to pay for tuition, fees, room and board if they are living in a double dorm with a meal plan. About 70 percent of that money — or $38,170 — goes toward tuition, according to the school’s website.

By comparison, Harvard University’s online price estimator says it costs about $60,659 per year for tuition, fees, room and board at that institution. Those prices do not include the cost of books, supplies or other expenses.

Ringling’s tuition also includes a MacBook Pro with heavy-duty software and access to Athena — a program on Ringling’s central servers that allows students to download and use more advanced software from their personal devices through a wireless connection.

Housing

Thompson said that costs beyond about $50,000 for housing and tuition are largely discretionary and vary widely between students, so he is hesitant to use figures that include things such as transportation, spending money and other types of spending when calculating the cost of attending.

But Ringling’s on-campus housing is quite expensive compared to other colleges, costing about $13,762 a year, only about $1,000 less than off-campus housing, which averages about $14,718 per year.

About 70 percent of all Ringling students live on campus, and the majority of the dorms are six years old or younger. Most of them are still being paid off by Ringling, which contributes to the high costs.

Lucas Riquenes, an 18-year-old game art freshman, pays the equivalent of more than $1,000 a month for his dorm in the Goldstein Residence Hall.

But both Riquenes and Fratantaro said they don’t mind paying the costs because they know they will ultimately find careers after school. That’s because Ringling’s career center works with students throughout their life — even if a 40-year-old alumni is looking for help in finding a new job, the career services center will help. About 80 percent of graduates find a job in their chosen field within six months of graduating, according to Ringling. About 90 percent find jobs in their chosen fields within nine months of graduation.

“You’re really paying for the career services. They got me an internship and are helping me find a job after I graduate,” Frantantaro said. “But the loans will take some time to pay off.”