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Comment by setgree | Hacker News Reader

The flipside of that is that if Harvard charged $1M a year, they'd still have more applicants than spots.

The sticker price of Harvard is not what the median applicant pays. Some applicants -- e.g. Jared Kushner -- literally do pay millions [0]. Others pay a small fraction of that [1].

My 2c: lowering the sticker price at elite schools would be great because it would lower the perceived barrier to entry. Those perceptions matter, especially to folks who don't come from the Professional Managerial class and don't have a clear understanding of how the system works.

But I also see why they don't -- they do, after all, want to make sure that rich families pony up.

[0] https://www.propublica.org/article/the-story-behind-jared-ku...

[1] https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/why-harvard/affordabi...

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It still raises the barrier to entry since the kids who can't technically afford the school now have to not only qualify to be accepted, but also qualify for the scholarship. The latter is not a guarantee.

Some private schools (not sure Harvard is one) have a "if accepted you WILL go" rule - which boils down to pay as much as you can, take some (usually relatively low) loans, and the college will cover the rest. You may have to go on work-study.

I think the "loans" part should be removed, myself.

I don't know about Harvard (EDIT: now I do, it's the same), but Yale's policy on this is that they do not expect students to take loans, and that the university will provide 100% of the demonstrated financial aid need for an admit.

https://admissions.yale.edu/affordability-details

Yep, things like this is why I would counsel students to either aim very high or affordable. The middle-ground is where you can get eaten alive.

+1, I attended a relatively endowment-rich private “top school” (not Harvard) and every other student I knew said “it was by far the cheapest school i was accepted to!”

Everyone I knew from high school that attended private schools, or “good schools” out of state paid out the nose (or their family did). I grew up in a relatively affluent area, so most people didn’t get much aid. My family could afford to pay for my schooling too, but I had one of the lowest bill of anyone, excluding some in-state public schools, because private schools with big endowments heavily subsidize almost all students that aren’t rich foreigners, 1%er kids, GI bill/someone-else-pays attendants.

TLDR: Schools know who can write a blank check, and they set the sticker price based on those students. Everyone else is subsidized.

How much weight is the word "demonstrated" carrying?

Usually the hard part is the "expected FAFSA parent contribution". If you have children that may consider college, spending some time now to structure things can help (the FAFSA ignores some assets and counts others):

https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/schools/high...

So it can be strangely worthwhile to sell all your non-retirement investments and buy the biggest house you can find.

For Yale: https://admissions.yale.edu/affordability-details

So for example: for incomes in the $65-100k range, the median net cost is $5,701 with 99% receiving aid.

Princeton does the same thing. Ivy League schools are cheeper than state schools for some students.

I think this is the correct route. I don't see anything wrong with wealthy families paying a high sticker price as long as admissions is mostly need-blind, and students with less resources get a break.

> pay as much as you can

pay as much as you and your parents can pay and/or borrow[1]

TFTY

https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works/type...

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