The part of the infographic showing the average cost of private college by state seems mostly meaningless to me. The top private schools compete nationally and are around the same cost regardless of where they are, so for smaller states that don't have a lot of regional private schools, all it takes is having one top private school and they'll be near the top. Massachusetts gets particularly nailed, as it is a small state and it has both Harvard and MIT.

The most interesting thing I see on the infographic is the section where it shows the schools that give the best value. Note they are all top private schools. They are the most expensive schools, but they have very good aid packages. Out of curiosity, I've went to the cost calculators that some of these schools provide and worked out what it would cost if I had kids and they wanted to go to these schools.

It was somewhat surprising--it turns out that if I had a kid and sent him to Harvard, for instance, our total cost (parental contribution, contribution from kid's summer work, and some combination of kid's work during school or loans) would come out to about $5-7k/year. The rest would be covered by need-based grants and scholarships. Results are similar at other top private schools.

Doing the same at top public schools gives a much larger total cost.

It's not clear to me why the top private schools are able to offer so much better aid packages.