I want to make one comment here. Financial Aid does not come out of magic black box of money. Other than perhaps five schools, the school is simply charging different prices to different students with one group overpaying and the others getting a discount. As for those five or so don’t see why Harvard has to do so but they do the same thing as everyone else. The ONLY reason all other schools can provide financial aid, is that a significant percentage of the student body is paying retail while others are paying wholesale or nothing. I am not against that system at all, I understand it and believe it brings great benefit to the country, the school, and the high achieving students on financial aid. A school like Brown, with a relatively small endowment must admit a significant number of high income students to even offer generous financial aid. The money is being shifted from one group of families to another group. If you stopped admitting the one group, the other group of families could not attend because there would be no money. So criticizing schools like Brown for having a large number of parents who can pay the high tuition, is also saying that they wish Brown gave out less financial aid. It is really not something you can criticize or speculate about, it simply is the way things are. Looking at statistics for schools like Brown that offer a lot of financial aid and have full pay parents is just seeing the whole equation. It may be uncomfortable to realize that “financial aid” is in significant part simply a transfer of wealth between and among families of students, but that is the way it is. So, analyzing the student body’s wealth in the abstract is not particularly helpful without considering the consequences of changing that composition.