Rose tea

Damn! Were you not eligible for scholarships or assistantships or anything? I don't know anyone who's ever paid full ticket price, undergrad or grad...or are you talking for the whole degree?

(And OP, not all unis charge the same: mine would be $18K per year for the first year, after which you could qualify for residency and pay $6K/year. I got funding and ended up not paying anything)

Bob

Lot depends on the uni and the visa, if you're on a student visa, you'd often pay the full whack and some uni's won't let you switch to in state rates after a year either....and unless you're got a greencard, there's very little that you can usually qualify for unless it's either private or something the uni offers.

Apfelkuchen

It also depends on the kind of study. I have quite a few (UKC) friends currently in the US on full tuition + maintenance PhD scholarships. The universities they are at include Stanford, Chapel Hill, UPenn, MIT and NYU. However, while there seem to be decent funding opportunities for people on an academic career path, I suspect there might be less available for so called 'professional development' postgrad courses (business school etc.).