3 ms·

There is a vast gap between "parents make < $100K/year" and "parents have assets to pay in full".

• nostrademons 7y ago
  There is, but the financial aid formulas are sliding scales, not sharp cut-offs. They just like to publicize the zero-tuition cutoff because it makes for a good press-release. The formulas (and sticker price, and median income) were pretty different when I went to college, but I had about 2/3 of my tuition paid for by grants when I went to Amherst, almost 2 decades ago. My parents were an elementary-school teacher and a househusband, so we were far from rolling in it. It was expensive, but ultimately affordable. If you're in the situation where it'll cost $100K in loans to go to college, you should shop around, and potentially also try to negotiate them down. Amherst gave me roughly double the financial aid that Middlebury did (ultimately a large factor in deciding where to matriculate), and then tacked on an extra couple grand when I said I was deciding between them and Williams.