> One study found that most high-achieving, low-income students chose not to apply to highly selective colleges with steep sticker prices. They opted instead for schools with lower sticker prices that ended up offering much less financial aid and thus costing more.
The other not-so-secret is that small private liberal arts don't necessarily have stickers all that much lower than the top schools--and, as you suggest, they're much less able to provide financial aid than schools with multi-billion dollar endowments.
I have some regrets about my choice of undergrad school, but it isn't because I went someplace cheap. I could have gone to one of the multiple state schools that would have given me half off just for being born somewhere.
Instead, I went to a school that was in my home town. I learned things when I went to college, but that school was objectively the wrong choice. Not only did it cost double what the state school would have cost[0], I missed out on the reason young people ought to go to college in the first place: a once in a lifetime chance to spend 4 years hanging out and making friends with high achieving people who would go on to shape the face of the world.
Granted, one of my college friends ended up as a senior researcher studying cancer, and another went on to work for Mozilla, but I'm pretty sure in my class of ~300, there weren't too many CTOs, VPEs, star researchers, etc. Simply going to a bigger school would have been a better choice; going to a school that was both bigger and better than my undergrad institution would have been the best choice.
I guess that's what you get when society expects a 17-year-old to make what may be the single most impactful life choice they'll ever have. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
That said, going to a small liberal arts college had its advantages. I learned a lot. Some of that stuff I learned, I've even gotten to use once or twice. But, looking back, if I could send my past self a message back in time, I'd tell me to go somewhere else. I may not have been much better off financially if I had met someone in college at 20 who talked me into partnering up on some insane business venture or something, but that experience would have been priceless.
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[0]: This was even after I got a scholarship that reduced my estimated family contribution to 2/3 of what the sticker price was, on top of being able to stay at home and save money that way.
My parents also told me college doesn't matter, just the degree (which was their way of saving money). Not that they paid a dime anyways, they just always felt comfortable lying to me if it saved them any amount of trouble.
> One study found that most high-achieving, low-income students chose not to apply to highly selective colleges with steep sticker prices. They opted instead for schools with lower sticker prices that ended up offering much less financial aid and thus costing more.