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Comment by clusterhacks | Hacker News Reader

At Harvard, 28% of students receive no aid at all. So they pay full sticker price.

Average net price by income in 2021-2022 [1]:

  Income               Cost
  0-$30,000         -- $5900
  $30,001-$48,000   -- $3,002
  $48,001-$75,000   -- $4,180
  $75,001-$110,000  -- $17,037
  $110,001+         -- $52,634

If your household makes $110,000 per year in California, the take home pay I found calculated online was ~$75,000. So that means paying around 22% of take home pay to go to Harvard? Can the average household actually put 22% of their take home pay into tuition without taking on debt?

[1] https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=harvard&s=all&id=166...

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I said the majority not all, and I didn’t say no debt.

And $52k is the average paid by all students with a family income of above $110k. Not the price paid by every student once you hit $110k.

This average is skewed by people making much more than that.

For specific numbers, if your parents make $150k, they are expected to contribute 10% of their income.

You can look up the numbers here https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat...

For a family with an income of $150k and one student in college, they are expected to pay $15k per year.

If they were instead making $110k, they are expected to pay $5k per year.

If they make $85k or less, they are expected to pay nothing.

Harvard also looks at assets but excludes primary residence and retirement savings.

So yes the vast majority of people can afford to attend harvard with almost no debt. Even in the rare situation where you take on large amounts of debt, the connections made there and the brand recognition of the degree are almost definitely worth it from a financial perspective.

> At Harvard, 28% of students receive no aid at all. So they pay full sticker price.

And legacies pay well above sticker price, when you count family donations. Which is why legacies are a thing.

The other reason legacies are a thing is because when you send your first gen Ivy kid to an Ivy, the dream is that they're going to move in those social circles for the rest of their lives. Doesn't work without legacies.

If you're taking home $110K, you're not paying $52K. That average is being driven by the fat tail of parents with million-dollar incomes.

Compare this data from Yale: https://admissions.yale.edu/affordability-details

97% of $100-150K incomes got financial aid, with median net cost under $15K.

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