I think your perspective IS flawed. There are many “MIT-like” universities- and I don’t think Lehigh is one of them.
Not sure what the specific discipline is- but UIUC for Computer Science? Missouri S&T for Chemical Engineering? Rutgers or UMN for math? Don’t know where you live or how the finances would shake out and don’t know the details on “why MIT” but the construct you’ve posted seems like a strawman argument.
Presumably “debt free” at Lehigh would also mean “debt free” at a bunch of other “meets full need” universities, no? And if the concern is that MIT’s package is too loan heavy, why not look at some of the schools which are no-loan?
Lehigh is a fine school. But socially it is closer to places like BC, Villanova than it is to MIT.
Why only these two schools- and ignoring all the other options?