I think the article did a poor job of representing the recent efforts by elite universities to open up access to the children of farmers and auto-mechanics. http://npc.fas.harvard.edu/
There's still more to be done, sure, but it's important to mention that this isn't as bad as it was even 10 years ago.
Interesting. I'm the daughter of an electrician. I was admitted to Harvard in 2002, and at that time I believe they wanted my parents to pay about $12,000 for my first year. My parents couldn't afford it, and I did not attend. If that calculator is to be believed, Harvard would now expect less than $3000 from my parents. I probably would have attended had that been the case back then.
I think things changed a lot around 2009? I'm just going by memory... but I think that's when a lot of the ivies drastically changed tuition assistance based on income.
