It’s that time of year again: The Princeton Review has just released the 2009 edition of The Best 368 Colleges. This annual publication ranks schools according to a number of qualifiers, including academics, politics, and, of course, social scene. However, these days a more urgent question is: will you be able to afford the education you want?

Even though colleges are supposed to rear the next generation of great thinkers, they are also businesses. Like any other business, they have costs like real estate, salaries, and utilities. These costs increase every year, and much of that is taken from students in the form of tuition and fees increases. Ironically, many of the most-sought-after schools (including all of the Ivies) are also among Campus Grotto’s 100 Most Expensive Colleges.

According to an article published in the New York Times in December, “college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose 147 percent,” meaning that most families can probably afford no more than a quarter of what they will have to shell out for a four-year institution.

The cost of college keeps increasing, but the availability of aid seems to be diminishing at the same time. This disparity has reached the point where students are now foregoing A-grade private schools like Brown or New York University (NYU) for less expensive state schools that often also offer more financial aid. (A worthy note: a few public schools did make it onto U.S. News’ 2009 top 25, including UCLA, UC Berkeley, and University of Virginia.)

Although different schools use different formulas, all colleges disperse financial aid according to need, merit, or a combination of the two. Typically, the poorest 5-20% of students enrolled receive significant need-based amounts. Students on sports scholarships and those with families that make large contributions to the school also get a lot of help. After this divvying of endowments, middle-class kids are usually left to fend for themselves. If they are lucky enough to be warranted any aid, it’s usually in amounts that don’t seem to lessen the weight of student loans.

Finding a way to finance the education you want is something I have done. As an NYU student myself, the annual cost of attending was an issue before I even ever set foot on campus. Although NYU’s tuition itself is comparable to many private universities, the other costs associated with going to school in the middle of Manhattan are what make its affordability difficult. Even with a combination of scholarships, grants, and loans, I was looking for a way to reduce my costs. In my efforts to pay for college, I have moved off campus, quit my meal plan, and opted-out of every optional cost.

The worst part about worrying over how to pay for school is that it overwhelms the college experience. With still another year to go, I’m already looking at $70,000 worth of debt. Like many others, I’ve taken on a series of part-time jobs to help pay my expenses each month. Trying to make rent and bills every month while balancing classes and an internship means pretty much giving up my social life in its entirety. It seems a steep exchange in the name of education, but this boat I’m in is jam-packed full with other students in the same situation.

Students working their way through college are becoming increasingly common, but working comes at a price. Many are struggling to keep up with their classes since all their free time is spent working. At the extreme, some have even taken entire semesters off to work full-time, in the hopes they can save enough for the next term. Being able to find that balance between affording school and keeping up with classes is difficult, and it’s amazing to me that schools aren’t doing more to help.

The most troubling part of this whole debacle is just how much money universities actually have. Topping the National Association of College and University Business Officers’ (NACUBO) 2008 list of school endowments is Harvard, which has a whooping $36.6 BILLION. However, their endowment is significantly larger than most schools. The range of average school endowments runs from $1 billion to $10 billion, with a median around $4 billion. Still, these numbers are large enough that you’d think schools could afford to be a little more generous when it comes to their students.

If you are going to all the trouble to finance an education, something to consider when choosing which school to hand all this money over to is where you’ll get the most bang for your buck. Kiplinger.com compiles a fairly comprehensive list of the best-value private and public schools, basing their ranking on a combination of quality and ranking. However, the list places a 2:1 emphasis on quality over affordability, so many of the schools ranked high academically are also among the most expensive.

Finding the balance between quality and affordability is not an easy task, especially in regard to your education. In the short run, cost plays a huge role in determining where to go to college. If a school is way out of your range, you run the risk of having to drop out at some point.

Yet, as they say, your education is an investment in your future. There’s a reason why some of the best schools are also the priciest. Higher quality always means a higher price tag, and schools are no exception. So ultimately, finding the best value school for you comes down to figuring how much you are willing to sacrifice for you future.