[big_chungus]

This is what I don't get about "financial aid". The "elite schools" name an outrageous figure, charge the rich kids, give money to the poor ones, and ignore the middle class. This is probably intentional: they want either students whose daddies will donate or students who look good on press releases about "diversity". Now that the feds have nationalized student loans, colleges can continue these stupid policies knowing that the bottomless credit card of the American taxpayer has their back. Federal student loans don't consider a student's major, either; there's no way a "xyz studies" or poetry major should get the same loan at the same rate of a stem kid, even if that student has the same financial situation. From an actuarial perspective, it's nuts: one is going to end up a starving artist and the other has a promising career.

Oh, and my two cents: if you want to end up with larger numbers of under-represented groups in higher-paying fields, maybe making the long-term outcomes clear at that stage would help. Saying, "follow your dreams!" is very, very stupid advice to an eighteen-year-old.

[alistairSH]

That's not 100% accurate (the middle class is NOT ignored at the elite privates). For example, Stanford meets 100% of the tuition for students with family income <=$150k.[1] And the assistance doesn't evaporate completely at $151k. For families with incomes <$65k, tuition and expenses are covered. Most of the Ivies are similar.

The problem is really at elite publics, which don't have the massive endowments, so cannot subsidize middle class students.

We're at a point where it can be LESS expensive for many middle class students to attend Harvard than UMich or UVA.

1 - https://financialaid.stanford.edu/undergrad/how/parent.html