Outrageous-Duck9695 t1_iu2yor3 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 4:04 AM

Reply to comment by kaseda in [OC] Racial breakdown of students at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford compared to students scoring 1400+ on the SAT by tabthough

Usually if you come from low income family ivy schools are free.

kaseda t1_iu2znnq wrote on October 28, 2022 at 4:14 AM

Only if you meet their criteria or get the right scholarships. E.g. 2 parents working just above minimum wage jobs might have income above their threshold but would be a problem if you're only 1 of 5 children. Even then, who knows how much applying for that need-based full ride ends up affecting your admission. Some stats I've seen estimate only 20% actually get those scholarships, which might end up being less than half of the minority group in the end, so they still end up paying at least some money and pulling out loans. At Ivys, even small percentages of tuition will add up fast.

Outrageous-Duck9695 t1_iu30kmt wrote on October 28, 2022 at 4:23 AM

Harvard stats:

Families with annual incomes of $75,000 or less do not pay anything toward the cost of a Harvard College education.
Nearly 1 in 4 undergraduates comes from a family whose annual income is $75,000 or less.
55% of Harvard undergraduates receive financial aid and pay an average of $12,700 per year.

If you are poor, Ivys are the place to be.

685327593 t1_iu32qo6 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 4:45 AM

WAY to many people don't understand this. The reality is that unless you're rich the better the college you go to the LESS you will actually pay. Too many people get scared by the "sticker price", but that's mostly to fleece international students.

kaseda t1_iu32obx wrote on October 28, 2022 at 4:45 AM

An average of $12,700 leaves you with $50k total debt after 4 years. Even if you assume most of that is outliers who receive no aid, leaving with $25k can still be tough. The reason why "breaking the cycle" is such a myth is because getting an education leaves you in debt, so you spend time paying that off. Once you do, the money that you might spend investing or saving often ends up going towards your parents, who couldn't save for themselves. Once you are ready to send your own child to college, the money that you would have saved for them has gone to your parents, and so they end up going with no savings - but now you make money so need-based scholarships are hard to get. Unless you are getting your education completely free, you'll probably have less debt somewhere else and after a few years experience nobody will care that you went to an Ivy school.

Outrageous-Duck9695 t1_iu3apb0 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 6:20 AM

For 90% of American families Harvard is more affordable than their local state school.

The median annual earnings for an Ivy League graduate 10 years after starting amount to well over $70,000 a year. For graduates of all other schools, the median is around $34,000.

I went to a state school for two years after attending CC for my first two and still came out with a debt of ~30k. I would have zero debt had I been accepted and attended Harvard.