<p>The strength of a college’s financial aid does roughly correlate with endowment per student, so Harvard’s “10% rule” for high middle class families is about as good as it gets. Still, colleges don’t want their graduates screwed over; that’s why the plans exist in the first place. They aren’t completely fair, but there are a lot of people out there who are very happy with the institutional aid that they get, and the highest ranked schools (all around the most expensive) do the best job with it.</p>
<p>Top schools are generally much cheaper.</p>
<p>Though they are harder to get into.</p>
<p>What I’ve been wondering about is lower-ish middle class like myself…it’s disconcerting to fall above the FA line but still not be able to pay for college comfortably (and I don’t mean that my family lives luxuriously…we live in a rich town but avoid using air conditioning, only have one cell phone, no cable TV, etc.)</p>