A college that my daughter was accepted at claimed to meet 100% of need, as I think a lot of private colleges do. It meant that after we filled out the FAFSA an

A college that my daughter was accepted at claimed to meet 100% of need, as I think a lot of private colleges do. It meant that after we filled out the FAFSA and an additional form that some private colleges use, they figured out how much we could "afford" to pay, and it was about 100% of full freight. We're a middle class family, let's say supported by 1.5 professional jobs, since one of us works part time. We didn't have a quarter million dollars jangling around in our pockets, and were greatly relieved when our daughter chose the nearby public university instead. Also, it's often expected that "need" will be partially met by working a campus job, and taking out loans. It's great if the college wants to curate a student body including some low income students, but I think there's a pretty big swath of the middle class that's neither poor enough nor rich enough for one of those colleges. I'm not devastated. The state university is damn good, and hobnobbing with the influential is only useful if you happen to be skilled at hobnobbing.