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Comment by intenex | Hacker News Reader

Of course HMC tops the list. It's free for everyone. Reminds me of that one (Forbes?) college ranking list that had West Point as the best school to go to, primarily because they factored in cost as a major ranking determinant.

And yes, everything's stacked in the favor of elite schools. They make you more money, and they cost less. I had a full ride to Harvard and so did everyone else whose parents made less than $80k. At state school I would have been fucked over twice.

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As a recent HMC grad: It's very much not free for everyone. Many of my classmates graduated with fairly hefty loans which will take many years to fully pay off.

Olin is free for everyone, and there's a wave in the elite schools to set up payments so that students don't leave with loans. Mudd has a relatively small endowment, so probably couldn't function under that model.

Whoops, my bad. Not sure how I came under that impression. Seems like Olin's not free anymore either, only half-tuition now. Shame

EDIT: Ahh, I was thinking of Cooper Union.

Is there evidence that elite private schools are cheaper than state schools for a significant portion (or better yet, majority) of the population?

$180,000 and under, all you have to pay is 10% of your parent's income for Harvard. Above that it scales, but still you have to be well in the $200s+ before you have to pay the full admission price. Similar for Princeton/Yale other schools with a shitload of money, though I'm not sure of the exact numbers.

Given a median household income of ~$50k in the US, I'd say yes, elite schools are almost unequivocally cheaper across the board than state schools. Common misconception held by most.

Shepherd University's is 4,500$/year tuition and Harvard's endowment is vastly superior to most Ivy's which enables them to have significantly lower tuition. Also, the income of parents sending their kids to collage is significantly better than the national average household income.

Part of this is Age: "Households headed by persons between the ages of 45 and 54 had a median household income of $61,111 and a mean household income of $77,634." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...

And part of this is education: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Income_Education_91_to_03.... with a higher percentage of people with a collage degree sending their children to collage.

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