Need is a hazy thing. They will meet all of what they define as your need, but what you "can pay" often means a substantial sacrifice when it comes to standard

Need is a hazy thing. They will meet all of what they define as your need, but what you "can pay" often means a substantial sacrifice when it comes to standard of living. This is especially bad if your parents have been paying what they "can pay" for the last 4 years for an older sibling. Also, it's gotten a lot better in the last few years, which is after he moved through Harvard. About 3(?) years ago, they, along with a few other upper-echelon colleges (I know Stanford did) moved to a much more liberal definition of need and totally got rid of loans from financial aid programs. Now, theoretically, if your family makes <$60k, you pay nothing, and <$100k you pay no tuition, but pay room & board and such. There's more variables than just family income, and you always have to add to the "nothing" or the "no tuition" a reasonable figure for the student to make from having a part-time job during the year and full-time over the summer, but it's still substantially more generous than it was. It would be interesting to see if those policies changed the percentage that are only children.