The reality is that elite college education is for the kids of very wealthy people. It is not an egalitarian enterprise. It is a system of oligarchy. Colleges like to obscure this fact by claiming to be “need blind”, but as you see in your case, this claim is misleading in many cases. The top 19 schools on USNews charge nearly $60k/ year in tuition, increasing every year. It’s abhorrent to me. We are sticking with our state university system as an ethical principle. Many of these top colleges intentionally build their luxury brand by creating artificial scarcity. They then leverage the brand to make gobs of money on, for example their hospital & medical systems.