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Comment by jkaptur | Hacker News Reader

From TFA:

> Financial aid, in the form of grants, scholarships, loans and work-study programs, closes the gap for many.

From https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/it-costs-78200-to-go-to-harv...:

> About 55% of Harvard students receive need-based scholarship aid with average grant totals around $53,000. > > The school states that families with students who receive scholarship funds pay an average of $12,000 towards their education per year and that students from families that earn between $65,000 and $150,000 typically contribute between 0% to 10% of their income towards the cost of attending Harvard each year.

I wonder what the average out-of-pocket cost is to attend these institutions.

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> Financial aid, in the form of grants, scholarships, loans and work-study programs

Heavy on the _loans_, light on the grants and scholarships. My son graduated valedictorian and scored in the top 4% on the SAT (and had athletics, and had community service, and had national honor society, etc. etc.) was offered about $2000 _total_ (of the $50K/year price tag, so about 1% of the total cost) in scholarships. He didn't apply to Harvard, but I don't believe for a second they're throwing around any more money than Purdue or Michigan are. Edit: and those two scholarships came from his high school, not the colleges he was applying to.

Can you imagine any other product where when you ask the price, the answer is: "How much money do you have?"

Insane. Basically this traps people who are about $200k or so to spending HUGELY on their kids education. And what they also don't say is that if you have assets they expect to take 5% per year per kid in college as a minimum contribution.

Healthcare in the US apparently. At least it seems from my relatives that this is also the type of thing where you get a huge bill and then talk it down.

Haha exactly! Another market well known for transparency and ethics!

I did the analysis for Princeton once - the average out of pocket cost was $15,000 per year. That has remained constant even as sticker prices (and the cost per student) has escalated.

What people don't appreciate is how much expense per student has skyrocketed in the last 20 years. Princeton has about 100 more student sports staffers, and spends about $45,000 per year per student in student services. Library expenses have also escalated far faster than inflation.

I went to a state school in the mid 90s and I remember seeing a breakdown of tuition costs. Half of the cost was whatever the school council / student body decided was a good idea over the years. I can't imagine the percentage it is now. It was a good lesson in politics and political spending / budgeting.

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