We consider ourselves an upper middle income class with pretty decent assets (home equity and investments). Of the 7 colleges my son was admitted to, Princeton’s FA offer was the most generous. He’s currently attending Princeton tuition free, cheaper than his older brother’s in-state flag university cost. Using the exact same financial profile, I ran an NPC on all Ivy’s plus Stanford just out of curiosity. The result showed that HYP were the most generous among all Ivy’s with P edging out HY and Stanford trailing HYP slightly. Over all, though, there weren’t significant differences among HYPS, which didn’t surprise me considering that they’re most competitive for the same cohort of students.
One other thing to consider, beyond the FA package offers, is what I’d call the “opportunistic costs” of attending a college. At colleges with very healthy endowment per student, these opportunistic costs can really add up without any financial burden on the part of the parents. Princeton, for example, which has ranked #1 in endowment per student for years, will often take their students to any part of the world for a learning opportunity with full expenses paid for. A class in ancient Greek archaeology, for instance, often takes place on-site in Greece. A class in Japanese culture takes place on-site in Japan, etc. I also know of a Princeton student whose request for gold nuggets for his senior thesis research relating to gold was actually granted by Princeton University. My son, who has successfully auditioned for the Princeton University Orchestra recently, gets to travel to Spain this coming January for a tour of that country – all expenses paid for by the university. If you add all these opportunistic costs on top of their most generous FA package, it is truly astounding to say the least.