Bait&Switch is correct on all accounts. My financial situation is actually opposite his family's, but the outcome is the same. We have a comparatively low income (less than half 200k, you do the math) but rather high assets. The fact that my parents have been saving all their lives and will be retiring in less than five years (and thus drawing from those savings) is apparently not factored into whatever equations fin-aid offices use: all the online calculators we've plugged numbers into have spat out ridiculous EFCs.
I guess by some twisted logic the EFC is correct... could we afford a 200k education? Technically, yes. But realistically, not really.
Of course, in my case the decision will probably be made for me, as I doubt I'll get into MIT. But it's an interesting topic nevertheless. Financial aid is supposed to open up an "elite" education to the widest range of socioeconomic situations possible, right? And yet the prohibitive price tag and lack of aid still excludes a large portion of the middle class from attending, in favor of the much small portions of the population bell curve: the extremely rich (who never needed aid) and the extremely poor (who get full aid).
I guess it makes sense, from a university's point of view. Meet 100% of need and spend the least money doing so. The lower your income, the higher your aid. But lower income also correlates to lower academic opportunities, so very few academically qualified "poor" candidates actually apply.
Am I saying that someone from a low-income family with the stats and aptitude shouldn't get aid to go to a top private? Of course not. Someone who managed to come out of a crappy HS with higher SATs than some rich kid who went to boarding school and had a private tutor certainly deserves the same opportunities.
But the fact remains that a kid who went to a mediocre rural high school and who doesn't want his parents to live in poverty 20 years from now because he broke their retirement savings deserves opportunities too, doesn't he/she?
But whatever. Life isn't fair. Ignore the ramblings of a bored student waiting for his next class to start.
