The main breakdown of dual degree programs puts the added cost of a fifth year somewhere between $40,000 and $100,000 -- a real range, but a wide one, because it's blending every kind of school into one estimate. Here's what that actually looks like at the two ends of the real cost spectrum, using current national tuition averages instead of a single blended guess.
The real fifth-year tuition math
Per College Board's 2025-26 Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid report -- the same national data already cited elsewhere on this site -- average published tuition and fees run:
- Public four-year, in-state: $11,950/year. A fifth year at this rate adds $11,950 in tuition alone, before a fifth year of room, board, and other living costs.
- Private nonprofit four-year: $45,000/year. A fifth year at this rate adds $45,000 in tuition alone -- roughly 4x the public in-state figure, for the exact same one extra year.
That gap is the real reason the $40,000-$100,000 estimate is so wide: it's not that any single dual-degree track has an unpredictable cost, it's that a public-school dual degree and a private-school dual degree are genuinely different financial commitments, and blending them into one range obscures which one you're actually looking at.
What this doesn't include
This is tuition only -- the same caveat that applies to headline tuition figures anywhere on this site. A real fifth year also means a fifth year of room and board, and a fifth year of foregone entry-level income, since you're not yet earning a full-time salary while your single-degree peers already are. Both add real cost on top of the tuition figures above, and neither is captured in a tuition-only number.
What this means for you
- Use your own school's actual published tuition rate, not the $40,000-$100,000 range, to estimate your real fifth-year cost -- that range only tells you the number could be almost anywhere; your school's own rate tells you where in that range you actually land.
- A public in-state dual degree and a private dual degree are not the same financial decision -- roughly a 4x gap in tuition alone for the same extra year, before factoring in room, board, or lost income.
- Add room, board, and a year of foregone income to the tuition figure, not just the tuition number itself, for a realistic total cost of the extra year.
- This is one piece of the larger dual-degree decision -- see the full breakdown of dual degree program types for when that added cost is actually likely to pay off versus when a double major covers most of the same benefit for less.