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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

I thought the unspoken truth was almost nobody actually pays the published private tuition rates so it’s usually actually cheaper or even free to go to a private university?

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Depends on the private university. At the very top (HYPMS), that's true (unless your family is very wealthy). It was cheaper for me to attend Yale than my sister to attend UT Austin, despite my parents being fairly affluent (dual-income engineers).

But the generosity of grants falls off sharply as you leave that tier. Financial assistance at schools like NYU are almost 100% in the form of loans.

Maybe people more well off or the opposite than I. As someone smack dab in the middle (my parents were just starting to make OK money and not struggle as I finished high school, AKA non-existent savings but current income looked good) the university said our out of pocket costs were around $40k a year when we sat down with financial aid. They give you next to nothing in cases like that, it is expected to be all parents money or loans. Not happening.

That was the case for the 2 private schools I visited while in the process of picking a college. Very small sample size of course, YMMV.

it is expected to be all parents money or loans

It's really problematic for large families, where schools expect parents of six kids to pay tuition as if they only had one kid.

Or my friends who were twins, but all of the algorithms were setup as if they wouldn't be going to college concurrently for some reason.

Or I wonder what happens when you have parents who just decline to pay for you.

I had parents that not only refused to pay, but also refused to fill out the FAFSA forms. At the time even being an emancipated minor wasn't enough to not look at your parents for non private loans or grants.

I only got private loans and dropped out after one year. I couldn't make the numbers work beyond that.

They'll knock a few grand off for various points, kind of like you're buying a new car. You're still spending a lot of money. Think of it as a car dealership with promotional giveaways.

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