Why is my net price so much higher than peer schools?
I ran the net price calculator and it is three times higher than Williams, Amherst, Rice, Swarthmore, Cornell, etc.
Is Brown known for offering much worse financial aid than its peers? Or am I missing something important here?
I would love to ED but that 3x price tag is really bothering me…
My net price was significantly higher at Brown as well. Even compared to many other ivies the price was much higher. Really confused about that…
My parents ran it, too, and it’s a lot higher for us also. 
People assume that because Brown is in the Ivy League, it must be extremely wealthy. In fact, Brown has a relatively small endowment per student. It is not in the top 50 schools in the nation in that category.
Amherst, Williams and Swarthmore all have approximately 4 times the endowment per student that Brown does. This is reflected in the amount of financial aid they offer the typical student (among other things).
When I run the calculators Brown is higher, but in the same ballpark. My guess is they count something heavily that others don’t (home equity maybe). Whatever it is doesn’t affect my calc’s nearly as bad as they do yours.
Likewise for us, the efc for Brown is significantly higher than all other peer (and even one-“level” below) schools. We are one income, W2, no business, no divorce, minimal investments, minimal home equity situation.
Brown includes home equity in their financial aid calculations. A lot of other schools don’t. Run the net price calculator again without your house, and that will tell you if home equity is what is causing the difference.