One of my children was recruited by Harvard. Their recruiters open with a line very similar to what they put on their website [0]: "70% of Harvard students rece

One of my children was recruited by Harvard. Their recruiters open with a line very similar to what they put on their website [0]: "70% of Harvard students receive some form of financial aid. A Harvard education is more affordable than a state school for 90% of American families." My general rule of thumb is that if it takes more than 4 clicks to discover the tuition costs of a school, they are embarrassed. If they are embarrassed it means that even they can't justify the value proposition. With some digging I see that Harvard claims [1] annual tuition > $50k. Before they tell you that, they promise you a $67K scholarship. Given those numbers, you can actually make money if you can live for less than $17K/year after tuition. So, yeah, it might really pay off. Oh, Harvard is also very clear that after you graduate you owe them a lifelong contribution. There is no question that they are expecting 7 figures back. But it seems reasonable that they get you the clerkship or whatever first that puts you in a position to pay back that kind of money. [0] https://college.harvard.edu/admissions https://college.harvard.edu/admissions [1] https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat...