Absolutely! But many of Harvard's peer institutions have sticker prices just as high without the same level of financial aid. I'd say a fairer metric to use for

Absolutely! But many of Harvard's peer institutions have sticker prices just as high without the same level of financial aid. I'd say a fairer metric to use for comparison is what fraction of people have sufficiently large financial aid packages that they pay less than $X where X is some reasonable value (maybe the median cost of in-state tuition at flagship state schools?). Another thing to watch out for is schools that say "the MSRP is $50k but we gave you $30k in aid so it's really $20k" when that $30k is loans, not grants. Harvard doesn't use loans (and very few students take them out), but as you go down a few tiers in financial aid that changes rapidly.