<p>Speaking strictly from experience and the common sense of history–I remember back in 198? when Stanford was reported to have broken the $10,000 ceiling for tuition and I thought to myself, in the inflection of John McEnroe, “You have got to be kidding me!”–what has happened in the field of financial aid is basically this: If you are a modest fry, whose parents do not have holdings outside of their almost-paid-for home–that is to say, no yachts or summer homes or otherwise sheltered income–and you are applying to a private school that utilizes the Profile instead of the FASFA (which all schools require but only those that don’t require the Profile actually use to determine your need) you will receive a somewhat better offer than a public/private school that only relies on the FASFA. If your parents make over $150,000 and have a little socked away here and there, you will receive a better package through a FASFA-centric school than one that relies on the Profile for its calculations. All in all, what seemed like a terrible miscarriage of justice when the cost of a college education shot through the roof, has actually made it possible for many people to attend who otherwise would not have been able to afford the institutions that generally make their way onto these discussion boards. The people who could afford an $8000 dollar-a-year education way back when, it turns out, could actually afford quite a bit more than that, and what stands in for their generosity along with the gifters who embellish the endowments of these institutions, is what pays the way for the future enfranchised. It’s kind of a neat little package, that.</p>