The marketing departments at these schools have done wonders. People whose families have modest incomes of 100-150k annually are going to pay a very large sum of money to attend these schools. It is only the very poor and very wealthy who do not have issues funding their education at one of these schools.
Except that the median household income in the US is ~55k. There is very likely a middle range of people too wealthy to get financial aid, but not wealthy enough to easily afford it, but calling it 99% is laughable.
Stanford takes care of tuition for families under $125k of assets, but even that means the upper middle classes will spend tons because they'll fall out of that range.
Exactly, less than 125k in assets is absolutely nothing. The reality is that a married couple consisting of two working professionals will not qualify for any of these reduced tuition schemes.
It would help if they also considered whether that income was from one or two people, and divided it by the number of kids so larger families with parents working multiple jobs aren't penalized.
But correlated. A two-parent, four-income, six-child family in a house just big enough to hold everyone might have $125k in assets, but in no way would they be able to help their kids pay for school, especially the older kids.
It's more expensive in terms of opportunity than money. Sure, an expensive SAT tutor will help but lower class kids usually have to work or take care of a substantial amount of chores in the household. That takes time away from the activities that get them into top schools.
That's really the problem. Sure, its cheap and they have great financial aid, but they don't pay for the tutors and the "life changing" experiences in Africa the rich kids have.
This just ain't reality. Most kids don't get in because they took a trip to Africa. Parents that pay a ton of money on making their kids the perfect college applicant generally get a bad deal and are a small minority.
It's not about paying to pad the application. There are legit methods of expanding your kid's world/mind. Those method generally cost more money than sitting in the house all summer watching tv.
Poor kids may not have a house to sit in and watch tv all day. They are at a major disadvantage and Ivies and other elite schools don't do a good job incorporating them into their schools due to their low sat scores and poor educational training, which is due to their poor socioeconomic status. You speak as if everyone is privileged and have the same opportunities but lazy.
And when everyone does those exact same things, nobody stands out (unless you lack those activities, in which case you are hurt). Look at what a high school degree has become... or what a bachelors is becoming. Truly standing out takes money and/or rare opportunity.