Harvard, for example, makes that guarantee only as to students whose parents' income is up to $65,000 a year (2)

1 https://fafsa.ed.gov/FAFSA/app/f4cForm

2 https://college.harvard.edu/node/426

Edit: In light of dollaaron's correction below, this is much less significant than I thought at first glance. This part "Scholarship or grant funds will be provided to cover these costs in lieu of a parental contribution" is still above and beyond what many schools do, but is similar to Princeton and Harvard, as he points out.

In this announcement Stanford clearly says that the no parental contribution level is 65,000, raised from 60,000 and now equivalent to Harvard/Princeton.

Am I misunderstanding how that works, or are they just saying "the parents should pay x and the student z - x" when they really mean "the total cost is z?"

This is a huge problem that, in retrospect, was rampant where I came from. A pretty typical middle-class suburban high school, but one which rarely to essentially never sent any graduates to Ivy League schools. Why? Because it wasn't part of the community's culture.

How do you fix this? In anything other than upper to upper-middle class suburbs, the parents themselves probably went to state schools and have middle class jobs (which themselves are under pressure now). So the parents and neighbors didn't know anything about Ivy League schools or how to propel their own kids into the upper class.

By the time most kids learn how the culture works, it's too late, they're already in whatever college and life track they happened to fall into. It's takes especially thoughtful parents or other older role models (like great teachers or counselors) to see a kids potential and tell them about their life options.

Some kids have this experience (maybe it's a family friend or distant relative that happens to be very wealthy and shines a light on possibilities to the kid), but most do not.

Hmm, I'm skeptical that it was a cultural issue. I went to a suburban high school and the issue wasn't that we didn't somehow know about the top schools, it's that you had virtually zero chance of getting in.

My best friends were the top couple students from my year and the year before me and I watched them mortified as the pattern played out -- they each applied to several top tier universities and were deflated when the stream of rejections came in (though one got into Notre Dame). Just being a valedictorian, active, national merit scholar wasn't enough. Most ended up going to their "safety" schools -- either University of Texas or Texas A&M.

My takeaway from that was that if you were white, middle class and middle-American suburban, that there was almost nothing you could do distinguish yourself enough to get into the country's top schools. As such, I think this announcement is more meaningful for folks from genuinely poor backgrounds than for those from relative suburban privilege.

90% of my graduating class fits that description. Out of a graduating class of 500 I'd say close to 10% of my class got into an Ivy League. Hell we had 9 get into Cornell alone. The 2013 class sent about 5%. It is a public HS but they offered tons of AP/extra curriculars/etc.

My school district, an amalgamation of suburban enclaves and small towns, only had about a third of that. I think being close to a larger city means probably a more sophisticated suburban population (I don't think I'd ever met anyone who'd been to an Ivy-ish school prior to college) and larger schools, which allows for more stratified educational tracks.

No sour grapes, that's just the way it is.

I'm skeptical this is a problem. There are some FANTASTIC public universities (many people choose to go to out of state).

> "By the time most kids learn how the culture works, it's too late, they're already in whatever college and life track they happened to fall into."

There's absolutely nothing wrong with choosing to go to a public university. Many of us decided to attend one instead of private ones.

All of this makes a big difference when getting your first couple of jobs. After that, it doesn't matter as much.

http://cognitomentoring.org/blog/how-much-does-where-you-go-...

In regards to the online content, keep in mind that this content has been developed and published with the knowledge that tens of thousands of people will watch it, so it is important to ensure it is of high quality.

After that point, performance bonuses in their many forms can have such a large impact and that doesn't seem to be represented in salary comparisons.

That is probably true, but there are undeniable benefits from the networking that happens at schools like Stanford. So if you have motivation and talent, you may derive even more benefit from going to an Ivy or similar school.

Harvard was the most generous, fully funded tuition + room/board + clothing stipend (presumably to keep up with the lifestyles of what would have been my wealthier classmates) + transportation stipend to fly back home for holidays.

All of the other Ivies (Columbia, Cornell, Penn) had roughly the same deal - full tuition and room/board

Hopkins - I required that I borrow 15k over 4 years to attend. Interestingly, this is the school I ended up going to.

If you don't mind me asking, why did you make that (seemingly counterintuitive) choice?

Hopkins usually wouldn't be considered as a peer to the top schools which compete on aid packages.

It might just be a way of saying "pocket money", but if someone objected, this could be justified by Boston's climate. Poor students from warmer places are unlikely to own a sufficient range of coats and hats.

However, there's a big difference between divorced parents and 10 siblings, and a situation in which I grew up: one sibling, married parents, lower middle class income, but my father had a ton of school loans. The result was that my family income was high enough that I qualified for reduced tuition at most private schools, but nowhere near enough reduction to make most schools viable. Cost was literally the only factor I was able to consider in my choice of school, and even having chosen the school which offered me the best financial aid, I was unable to complete school due to cost.

The fact is, the cost of education has risen to the point that higher education isn't available even to people in the middle class.

$125K/year family income reaches well into the middle class. I would have paid nothing to go to Stanford, and in fact I still would pay nothing to go to Stanford. I may actually apply and try to finish my degree. :)

I wouldn't send this message through HN, but I don't know another way to contact you. If you join one of the Haverford LinkedIn groups, we can talk that way and stop spamming this thread.