This seems like a natural solution to me, since it's not all that different from merit-based scholarships. At my school for example, the full tuition price was

This seems like a natural solution to me, since it's not all that different from merit-based scholarships. At my school for example, the full tuition price was ~$40k, but a portion of admitted students were offered a $10k merit scholarship. So we already had two categories of students, with somewhat different prices and somewhat different admission standards. I don't see a problem with adding adding more categories along the same lines, as long as some minimum academic standard is enforced. If I'm in the middle category, I'm happy with my peers who pay more than me because they subsidize the other categories, and I'm happy with my peers who pay less because they elevate the school's reputation.