Hacker News Reader

Shit is crazy! I did not know about the amount of fake scholarships private colleges give until today! If I knew it in high school I would have applied to more expensive colleges. I only applies to public universities in my state in high school because they’re cheaper.

Do the discounts aka fake scholarships rates apply to public schools as well? I’d think not.

View on HN

At least for elite public schools, the average student receives more in "aid" than they pay, meaning they are paying less than half of the "price".

https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/illinois/university-o...

And yes, it's a source of bad outcomes that those that cannot afford the inflated price of elite universities do not know that they would never have to pay that.

Public schools tend to give a lot of "need-based" scholarships, aka "we'll charge you whatever you can afford". Private universities are more open to "merit-based" scholarships on top of that, where they're actively trying to attract top applicants by reducing their effective cost, oftentimes to even cheaper than public universities.

As a result, if you're from a low-income background, but overcome the odds and manage to be an academically competitive applicant, most private schools will be offering something close to a full-ride once both need and merit based scholarships are considered.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com