Harvard is one of the most affordable colleges in the United States for typical families. Harvard’s NPC estimates zero cost to parents for the ~half of US families making less than the median US income. Harvard claims that they are less expensive than state schools for 90% of US families. The lawsuit stats also suggest that Harvard gives an admission boost for “SES disadvantaged” families, which roughly correlates with being among the ~half of families having less than ~median US income. Nevertheless, attending Harvard is still well correlated with being wealthy, and lower income students are rare. Some specific numbers from the NYT linked economic mobility study are below (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/harvard-university ). Note that the specific $ amounts are not inflation adjusted to the current year.
Harvard Income Distribution in NYT Study
Top 1% Income Families – 15% of students
Top 10% Income Families – 53% of students
Bottom 80% Income Families – 35% of students
Bottom 20% Income Families – 4% of students
The graphs at the bottom shows hardly any change over time with the improved financial aid. The older 1980 birth year cohort had the following distribution:
Older Harvard Income Distribution with 1980 Cohort
Top 1% Income Families: ~16% of students
Top 10% Income Families: ~56% of students
Bottom 80% Income Families – 32% of students
The lawsuit docs show that the acceptance rate is similar throughout the listed income spectrum, as summarized below. Rather than acceptance rate differences, the lower income distribution seems to be primarily driven by who chooses to apply to Harvard. Wealthy families are far more likely to apply to Harvard than typical, even though Harvard is far more expensive than state schools for this group. Not wealthy families are far less likely to apply to Harvard, even though Harvard has near zero NPC estimated cost to parents for ~half of US families, with students/families again favoring the more expensive school option.
Harvard Acceptance Rate by Income: Class of 2009-16
<$40k income – 11% (would be 6% without admissions preference)
$40-80k income – 11% (would be 8% without admissions preference)
$80-120k income – 9%
$120-160k income – 10%
$160-200k income – 10% (would be 11% without lower SES preference)
$200k+ who filled out FA – 12% (would be 13% without lower SES preference)
Did not fill out FA – 7% (would be 8% without lower SES preference)
This effect has been noted at other colleges besides just Harvard. For example, the abstract of the study at https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2013a_hoxby.pdf begins by stating the following.
“We show that the vast majority of low-income high achievers do not apply to any selective college. This is despite the fact that selective institutions typically cost them less, owing to generous financial aid”
More to the subject of the thread, I’m sure some people do assume saying you went to Harvard means you come from a wealthy family, and in most cases that assumption would be accurate. However, a similar statement could be said about the vast majority of selective private colleges, not just Harvard.