Per the Crimson, Harvard’s yield for the class of 2023 is nearly 83% of the 1950 accepted students. That leaves about 330 students who decided to go elsewhere. That’s not a lot of students when considering it comes from a worldwide pool. At my kid’s high school over the past 4 years, out of the 8 students admitted to Harvard, one chose to go elsewhere. That is very much in line with the data.
Harvard may not include student loans in their package. But plenty of families cannot afford what elite schools say they can. My high stat kid couldn’t apply to any colleges like that. They may take special circumstances into account but age to retirement, cost of living, cost of healthcare, etc aren’t considered. These schools are not remotely accessible to every high achieving student despite all the mailers we got saying how affordable they are.
We live in a 1800 sq ft 3 bedroom house and drive kia cars into the ground. We have 529 plans. Flagship level pricing is about what we can comfortably and safely afford. Harvard can be more generous than most but they certainly aren’t a possibility financially for any family. There absolutely are families out there taking risky loans to make that happen for their kids. I know at least 2 families personally that currently have freshman at “generous” schools with large parental loans.
Taking out loans privately is different from loans being included in the package that matches EFC. That simple. Affordability with the package is a different issue.
Middle income families have the most trouble paying. Lower income folks get more aid, obviously, and the higher income folks can pay, so…….That said, an income of $150k still means a cost of $15k which is certainly comparable to state schools.
Sorry for the tangent, my last post on this.
Harvard’s NPC at https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator says that middle income families (of 3 with 1 in college) with the income below would have net price of:
$60,000 → $4,600 ($0 parent contribution)
$80,000 → $7,000 ($2,400 parent contribution)
$150,000 → $19,600 ($15,000 parent contribution)
($4,600 is the expected student work contribution)
Since “middle income” is more along the lines of $60,000 to $80,000 (and certainly a lot lower than $150,000), how would such families necessarily “have the most trouble paying” for Harvard (unless they had FA-disqualifying situations like uncooperative divorced parents)?
Those are incredible numbers. You can make 150k and only have to pay 15k to send your kid to Harvard. That’s less than many state flagship in state rates.
The ones, and it looks like the only ones, that have it really hard are those that make 200k . They will get substantially less aid but not have dramatically more after tax income. Probably soaks up all of it.
Those numbers don’t consider assets - they always use average assets. Business owners, families with non-liquid or otherwise constrained assets, etc. or those just unwilling to pay $70K+/yr, and those with variable income (most business owners) won’t be able to come up with what Harvard actually wants. It still might be enough if you live in a high tax state like NY where over half of your income goes to taxes (income, property, sales. etc) and rents/home pricing is extremely high.
@rickle1 “The ones, and it looks like the only ones, that have it really hard are those that make 200k.”
On Harvard & UCLA NPC website I filled out a sample 4 person family with 180K income and $0 in student college savings. The total COA for Harvard is is around $136,000 (34K a year) and UCLA $124,000 (31K a year). In summary, you can get a ivy league education that normally costs $300,000 for almost the same price as the CA state flagship. Note a bad deal IMO.
As a side note, you are not 100% full pay at Harvard until you reach about 270K a year in income (assuming no other income).
I consider $60k middle income but Harvard doesn’t. A family with $60k income goes for free. I was referring to folks with incomes over $150. I assume families on CC who complain about affordability with no aid make more than $150k.
Probably $270k+ if they are complaining about no aid at Harvard.
But $150k or $270k+ does not make them “middle income”.
Last year my twins applied to Princeton and most of the reasoning was the generous financial aid. They had the scores and grades within the range (like thousands of other students). But they were not accepted and we didn’t get to see how generous the aid figures.
A family with 2 kids 4 years apart is expected to pay a big chunk more for college than a family with twins.
I told my daughter that she had to go to Harvard because it was less than room and board at the state school, about a third the cost of the elite LACs that admitted her (after FA)…
I have assets, but the tuition was pretty class to 10% of income. Harvard is very affordable.
Can we please merge this thread with the other two that are open. What makes Jennifer Lopez seem beautiful and Bruno Mars seem talented.
It’s so dull. Sorry. Just one guy’s opinion.
@MWolf So glad you tipped us off about some of the history of Stanford University and David Starr Jordan (post #102, p.7) I read the Wikipedia articles for Leland Stanford and his wife and for Jordan and recommend them to everyone. Fascinating cold case mystery. I also found an article about Palo Alto changing the name of the middle school that had been named after Jordan. Sorry about the digression, but I wanted to make sure those who love “Unsolved Mysteries” don’t miss your post.
“Typical assets” at Harvard and others is very low. You don’t need $270k in income to not get any or just token financial aid at Harvard. And try being a single parent with a high income (but lower than $270k) and far more than “typical assets.”
Closing thread. We’re just rehashing now.