<p>Pretty much all of the Ivy Leagues and 80-85% of all prestigious colleges cost 48K-50K per year! How do people afford that? I know that I would never, ever be able to afford anything close to that. I want to be a doctor, so I definitely can't spend 50K per year, be up to 250K in debt, then go to med school. It seems IMPOSSIBLE to get any type of full scholarship (or anything close) to any of the Ivy Leagues. As for most of the prestigious colleges out there it seems like you have to get all high As for all of high school, be involved in like 15 excellent ECs, take 8 or 9 APs courses every year, be in top 1% of your class, have like 30 awards up your sleeve, be the MVP for whatever sport(s) you play, get above a 32,33 on the ACT, get above a 2200 on the SAT, etc. I know this maybe a bit over-exaggerated, but not many people at all get large scholarships to the Ivy Leagues/prestigious colleges or universities.
How do people afford it?!?!?!?!</p>
<p>uh… lots of time the parents pay for college, not the student. and most parents don’t pay full price. a lot of people get financial aid even if it’s not a full scholarship (which, you’re right, is extremely rare now). there’s also scholarships from independent sources, etc. or rich families just pay full price.</p>
<p>Rich parents. My friend’s dad makes around 600K per year (very successful doctor).</p>
<p>Ivy League schools, along with numerous other top performing schools, are very generous in financial aid. A specific example is Harvard’s fin aid program, which let’s the student pay nothing in tuition expenses if the family income is $60k or under. Along with that, if your family income is $180k or under, the highest they’ll ask you to pay is just 10% of your income.</p>
<p>A lot get a whole bunch of mini scholarships to offset the cost, plus parents help, and loans. The Ivies will normally pay whatever is beyond your family’s EFC. Harvard only expects students to pay 10% of the family’s income and theycover the rest. But a lot of it is loans and family help.</p>
<p>Of course, there are those really rich families that can just brush off the full price, no problem.</p>
<p>Yeah, typically if you’re family’s income bracket is in the lower end, the Ivy League schools will offer you enough financial aid so that your EFC is only ~10-20% of the actual cost.</p>
<p>If your family does not make a lot of money the ivies could end up being much cheaper than your state school. People fail to recognize that the top schools give incredibly generous amounts of financial aid.</p>
<p>Dude, some of these Ivy League schools make multi-millions of dollars each year on the INTEREST generated by their endowments. </p>
<p>They have a lot of money to throw around for financial aid.</p>
<p>There are 3 kinds of assistance:
- need-based money
- merit based money
- loans</p>
<p>Some schools give NO merit based money . . . all their assistance is based on financial need . . that’s how people get full rides (or close to it) to Ivies and some LACs . . for example, for families that earn 60k or less per year, Harvard doesn’t ask families to pay anything, and charges are capped at 10% of income for families earning 180k of less. That is very generous.</p>
<p>Most schools give merit money . . . so if your family is fairly well off (like in the top 10% of household income in the country) and it needs to reduce the net Cost Of Attendance down to something that starts with a 2, look for schools that have a track record of giving more merit aid to a wider range of students, Example: while Bucknell gives an average of ~11k merit aid to about 6% of students, Davidson gives an average of 19k to 21% . . so seek out these financial aid safety schools.</p>
<p>Bottom line: anyone who pays list price and can’t really afford it hasn’t looked hard enough for good schools that give good money . . . and when that graduating senior is reported to get a full ride “scholarship” to an Ivy, you will know that they got that money because of financial need, not because they were a genius.</p>
<p>"Along with that, if your family income is $180k or under, the highest they’ll ask you to pay is just 10% of your income. "</p>
<p>Oh, if that were only true!</p>
<p>That is true</p>
<p>@vlines</p>
<p>You may want to read the last paragraph on this page, it explicitly states how the average parent contribution is 10% of the family income if the family makes between $60k-$180k: [Financial</a> Aid Overview](<a href=“http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k51861&pageid=icb.page248616]Financial”>http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k51861&pageid=icb.page248616)</p>
<p>Ivies are generous with aid, but if OP is lamenting the high scores and accomplishments needed to get in, I doubt OP is Ivy material in the first place.</p>
<p>If you are an Ivy-caliber student, you can get generous financial aid from the Ivies, or significant merit aid from lesser ranked schools. If you are not an Ivy-caliber student, you will probably need to stick with in-state publics to be affordable. You need to be a well above average candidate at a given school to receive merit aid. B-students don’t have many merit aid opportunities. Frankly, if you’re not an Ivy-caliber student, I question whether you will have what it takes to even get into med school down the road. Med school is all about top grades and high MCAT score. If you can’t get top grades in high school, how would you expect to do so in college?</p>
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<p>Harvard raised the bottom level to $80K (no longer $60K}.
And it says (faq)
Is it true that families with incomes of between $60,000 and $180,000 will have an average expected parent contribution of 10% of their income, regardless of the number of children or of other extenuating circumstances?</p>
<p>While students from families in these income ranges will typically find that their expected parent contributions are roughly 10 percent of their family’s total income, we will continue to take individual circumstances into consideration in our assessment of their financial need. Our financial aid policy is to scrutinize all sources of income and expenses for all families applying for financial aid, and those families with unusually high medical or sibling educational expenses may find that they are expected to contribute less than this percentage of their income, while those with extraordinary wealth will find that they are expected to contribute a higher percentage. Factors such as family size, health care costs, sibling educational expenses, and other non-discretionary expenses that place a drain on family finances are considered carefully in our assessment of a family’s need for assistance, and there is no income cut-off for our need-based scholarship eligibility. Currently there are a number of families with incomes greater than $200,000, who because of extenuating circumstances, receive need-based financial aid.</p>
<p>Although Op may or may not have the stats, the original questions was:
</p>
<p>Do realize that Ivyyers are in a different league. Just flashing a SAT score or award can land a scholarship. For most that arent kids to the superb rich, there are loans with rates specifically for the ‘advanced learner’. Once they enter the workforce and start earning big bucks, that cost would have just been a little spare change.</p>
<p>OK, so Harvard expected is “roughly 10% of income”…the question was about Ivys and top schools, right? I just am not seeing the same info from other schools, infact, it seems pretty bleak for merit aid.</p>
<p>You may not like this answer, but start saving and investing at birth or even before. The high cost of college is nothing new. Those who planned for it even before they had kids, and have been disciplined savers all along, should have plenty of options now.</p>
<p>Same lesson applies to retirement. Start saving from your very first paycheck. 40+ years of compound earnings works like magic. Take this example: one person invests from age 25 to 35 (10 years), then stops. His twin brother, now 35, starts investing the same amount to age 65 (30 years). Assuming the same rate of return, both will end up with about the same amount. If the early brother continued investing after year 10, the procrastinating brother would have to invest twice as much every year to catch up.</p>
<p>A lot of the top schools (Notre Dame, Harvard, Rice, etc) have very large endowments, allowing the schools to be need-blind while giving every student 100% of their expected need. Rice and Vanderbilt, for instance, have a no-loans policy for lower-income families; Middlebury caps your loans at $10,000 or so after four years, and Rice does something similar for those making $80,000+/year. HYP have an adjusted payment plan, where parents income dictates how much a student will way, so relatively few students end up paying in full.</p>
<p>I think that the term “need-blind” and “100% of determined need” are the tough terms. They mean different things at different schools. Especially since the schools themselves determine what your “need” is, not you.</p>