Ivy League isn’t going to leave you with crippling debt. The majority of students don’t pay anywhere close to the sticker price, and the network you build is worth the cost of admission.
It’s the lesser known private schools where you can rack up massive debt in private loans that don’t have income based repayment plans. That’s when you get into trouble.
If your household makes $110,000 per year in California, the take home pay I found calculated online was ~$75,000. So that means paying around 22% of take home pay to go to Harvard? Can the average household actually put 22% of their take home pay into tuition without taking on debt?
For a family with an income of $150k and one student in college, they are expected to pay $15k per year.
If they were instead making $110k, they are expected to pay $5k per year.
If they make $85k or less, they are expected to pay nothing.
Harvard also looks at assets but excludes primary residence and retirement savings.
So yes the vast majority of people can afford to attend harvard with almost no debt. Even in the rare situation where you take on large amounts of debt, the connections made there and the brand recognition of the degree are almost definitely worth it from a financial perspective.
> At Harvard, 28% of students receive no aid at all. So they pay full sticker price.
And legacies pay well above sticker price, when you count family donations. Which is why legacies are a thing.
The other reason legacies are a thing is because when you send your first gen Ivy kid to an Ivy, the dream is that they're going to move in those social circles for the rest of their lives. Doesn't work without legacies.
It’s the lesser known private schools where you can rack up massive debt in private loans that don’t have income based repayment plans. That’s when you get into trouble.