[a-posteriori]

When I was there, less than 8% of the students were paying full tuition (of which a good chunk were international students).

At a certain point, the colleges start to look like perfectly price discriminating monopolists: rather than charging the highest price to each customer, they set a maximum price ceiling and then subsidize the gap to the customer's marginal ability to pay.

[borski]

iirc, it was even lower when I went. And this is probably the most common mistake I see made about MIT, etc.; the lack of acknowledgment that the financial aid within top schools runs deep, which simply isn’t as true for smaller or less popular schools.

Going to a “top tier” school can, depending on your financial situation, actually cost you roughly what a state school would. You can argue there are too many hoops to jump through, or anything else, but that’s a different argument.

[throwaway0a5e]

> the lack of acknowledgment that the financial aid within top schools runs deep,

I think you're confusing depth and breadth. It's like the Harbor Freight coupon. Everyone gets 20% off with a few exclusions. But the people paying less than 80% (to continue the Harbor Freight metaphor) are few and far between.

[borski]

No, I understand precisely what you're trying to say. Based on my (admittedly anecdotal) experience applying to colleges and working (however briefly) in Financial Aid at MIT, it was not a 20% blanket by any stretch; each case was treated individually and there was an explicit focus on ensuring students were not saddled with insane amounts of debt.

There were exceptions, particularly for wealthy folks and people who were 'on the line' income-wise, but the majority got significant financial aid.

Just to give you an idea, from MIT's stats[1]:

* Average need-based MIT scholarship: $47,593

* Students awarded a need-based MIT scholarship: 59%

* Students attending tuition-free: 31%

* Class of 2019 graduates with no student loan debt: 76%

* Average student loan debt for those who borrowed: $23,226

The trope that the expensive schools are the cause of the massive student loan debt problem is just that; a trope. When only 24% of the class graduates with any debt at all, I'm not convinced MIT (and similar) are the problem. This is largely due to MIT and similar schools having massive endowments from which they can draw for Financial Aid; there are cheaper schools, certainly, but they have coffers that are less deep (referring to private schools), meaning students end up having to take more debt.

[1] https://web.mit.edu/facts/tuition.html

[grepthisab]

You kind of buried the lede in your last paragraph:

This is largely due to MIT and similar schools having massive endowments from which they can draw for Financial Aid; there are cheaper schools, certainly, but they have coffers that are less deep (referring to private schools), meaning students end up having to take more debt.

It is reality that expensive schools cause the massive student loan debt problem, but expensiveness isn't totally buried in sticker price but total cost of attendance. Schools like HYSM don't saddle attendees with as much debt despite their high sticker price perhaps because of endowments.

[NovemberWhiskey]

No; that's completely wrong. For example, the median value of scholarships for Yale's class of 2023 with family incomes under $65,000 was $76,925.

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

[gonehome]

The price is so high that even if you’re not paying full price, it’s often still extremely expensive.