The cost of going to college is fairly eye-popping. Between tuition, room, board and books, expenses pile up quickly.
For the 2021-22 school year, the average cost of a public college was $10,740 for in-state tuition and $27,560 for out-of-state, while a year of private school cost $38,070, according to collegedata.com.
That’s a lotta lattes.
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If you’re the one writing the tuition checks, then you might be irked when you see how much money college football and basketball coaches make. How can a university pay a college basketball coach a seven-figure salary, then charge students $50K?
With the men’s college basketball tournament concluding, GOBankingRates looked at the top college coaches in basketball and football to determine the number of tuitions their salaries could support.
Spoiler alert: Three Final Four coaches — Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Kansas’ Bill Self and Villanova’s Jay Wright — are in the top 20.
20. Rick Barnes, Tennessee basketball
Salary: $5.2 million
Tuitions salary could fund: 164
The most popular degrees at the Volunteer State’s top public university include business, kinesiology, health care and psychology. Barnes has 754 wins in his 35-year head coaching career.
19. Chris Beard, Texas basketball
Salary: $5.255 million
Tuitions salary could fund: 136
The University of Texas, with more than 51,000 students, has plenty of powerhouse degrees, with programs ranked in the top 10 in the country in business, communications, geosciences, education, engineering and more.
Beard, the head coach of the Longhorns men’s basketball team, has a Master of Education from Abilene Christian University.
18. Jay Wright, Villanova
Salary: $6.192 million
Tuitions salary could fund: 102
Villanova, a private Catholic university in Pennsylvania, features majors in psychology, economics and finance.
Wright, who has coached at Villanova since 2001, won national championships in 2016 and 2018.
Also Find: How Rich Are Mike Krzyzewski and Other Top-Paid College Basketball Coaches?
17. Ryan Day, Ohio State football
Salary: $6.614 million
Tuitions salary could fund: 189
THE Ohio State University, as it is known, has strong programs in political science, architecture and interior design.
Day has a 34-4 record, taking the Buckeyes to two appearances in the College Football Playoff.
16. James Franklin, Penn State football
Salary: $7 million
Tuitions salary could fund: 192
Penn State is ranked No. 2 in business and psychology degrees, and tied for No. 2 in graduate industrial engineering.
Franklin has a Bachelor of Science in psychology.
15. Jim Harbaugh, Michigan football
Salary: $7.05 million
Tuitions salary could fund: 132
The University of Michigan is one of the strongest public universities in the nation, featuring solid programs in undergraduate engineering, business and nursing.
Harbaugh comes from a family of coaches and has been at Michigan since 2015.
More: How Rich Are the Top College Football Coaches?
14. Kirby Smart, Georgia football
Salary: $7.133 million, plus $850,000 bonus
Tuitions salary could fund: 277
Fresh off the school’s first national championship since 1980, Smart could fund 29 Georgia tuitions from his bonus alone.
The university offers 129 undergrad programs, with business, management and marketing the most popular.
13. Lane Kiffin, Mississippi football
Salary: $7.25 million
Tuitions salary could fund: 281
Popular majors at Ole Miss include digital communication and media, accounting and business administration.
Kiffin is a lifelong football coach; he gave up his senior season as a player at Fresno State to become a student assistant coach.
12. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke basketball
Salary: $7.353 million
Tuitions salary could fund: 253
Krzyzewski, who is retiring, is the winningest men’s college basketball coach in history and just took Duke to its record 13t
h Final Four. The Army graduate funds several scholarships at Duke.
Regularly ranked as one of the top private universities in the country, Duke has top programs in computer science, public policy and econometrics.
1. Bill Self, Kansas basketball
Salary: $10.184 million
Tuitions salary could fund: 378
At the top of this coaching list is Self, who has taken his Jayhawks to four Final Fours and won the 2008 national title. He has a bachelor’s degree in business from Oklahoma State.
KU features strong degrees in nursing, journalism, psychology and nursing.
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For this piece, GOBankingRates sourced Sportsnaut’s list of highest paid college football coaches and USA Today’s list of highest-paid college basketball coaches. GOBankingRates then sourced out-of-state undergraduate freshman tuition information for each relevant school (not including room and board, books and other fees) and divided the pertinent tuition into relevant salary to find the number of students’ tuition that salary would fund. All data was collected on and up to date as of March 24, 2022.
This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Top College Coaches Make Millions; How Many Students Could That Pay For?