expensive than ever to attend college in the United States. But is the cost of a four-year undergraduate degree in the United States worth it?

According to the statistics, it just might be.

The United States boasts more top-100 universities than any other country. It also can count seven of the top 10 universities. This helps make the cost of a U.S. college education go down at least a bit easier.

Critics of the U.S. higher-education system might be surprised to find out that a four-year undergraduate degree in the United States doesn’t even rank as the world’s most expensive. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s cheap. The average four-year undergraduate degree at colleges in the United States costs $42,785.

That’s high enough to rank second in the world. What is the most expensive place in which to earn a four-year university degree? Japan. Students there pay an average of $54,412 to earn their four-year undergraduate degrees.

And, no, Japan doesn’t have many universities that rank in the top 100 of the world. The country only has three, and none of its universities rank in the top 10. Tokyo University is the country’s highest-rated college, ranking as the 16^th best in the world.

Aside from Japan and the United States, other countries in which a college degree is costly include third-ranked Australia, where that four-year degree costs an average of $42,292; Canada, $36,000; and the United Kingdom, $18,789.

If you want a college education that won’t break your wallet, you could always take your courses in Mexico, Sweden or Norway. A four-year college education there will cost you zero dollars. It’s pretty cheap in India, too, where that degree costs an average of $152. In France, it costs an average of $212.

Befitting the high costs of attending universities in the United States, the country boasts more top-rated universities than does any other, and by a wide margin.

The United States is home to the top two universities in the world, top-ranked Harvard and second-ranked M.I.T. It is also home to fifth-rated Stanford, sixth-rated UC Berkeley, seventh-rated Yale, eighth-rated California Institute of Technology and ninth-rated Princeton.

Only two United Kingdom schools, third-rated Cambridge and fourth-rated Oxford, and France’s 10^th-rated Ecole Polytechnique could break the United States’ stranglehold on top-10 universities.

The United States in all boasts 31 of the world’s top-100 universities. That places it far ahead of second-place United Kingdom, which is home to 13 of the top-100 universities.

Also ranking high are Australia, with 11 of the top-100 universities, France, with five, and China, Switzerland and the Netherlands, each of which have four.

Paying for a college education in the United States will never be an easy task. But students should at least know that they have better odds of attending a top-100 university than do students in any other country.