Below, take a look at the top 25 colleges that earned the most revenue off student applications last year, ranked from lowest to highest. The colleges transfer this cost onto the prospective student through application fees. In both cases, the most vulnerable people tend to make less-than-ideal decisions. The first layer focuses on the most obvious question: the affordability of college based on the cost of tuition, books, and living expenses divided by the median income in a given country. And living away from home is expensive, with or without a lazy river. Meanwhile, more and more of the risk gets shifted from government onto families, in both sectors.