[Mick]

My family had a pretty big reversal while I was a Sophomore. Parents declared bankruptcy and were being sued for more than everything they had. Prior to that, my parents had several million in assets and a self owned business. Stanford responded to these changes and provided a pretty good financial aid package for me. I ended up graduating with about $17K which was not tiny in 1999 terms when my starting salary was about $45K a year, but certainly manageable.

That's basically what I was getting at.  My friend's family was literally in the same boat, though he hasn't declared bankruptcy yet.  Stanford was generous (and in my view normal for an institution with an endowment its size), the other institution was not, and the kicker was that the other institution regularly advertises that their students don't graduate with any debt.  True on its surface, because it rarely extends loans to students, but parent loans are its chief financing tool.

Snorlax's comments are also 100% accurate.  In fact, if you go back further, my senior year in high school was 1979.  The regular student loan that anyone could get was $2,500 which was about what San Jose State would cost, inclusive of room and board.  SCU was $6,800 when I started in 1980, $8k when I left in 1984 all in.  Nominal household income in 1980 was $16,671, so private school tuition was about 40% of nominal household annual income and CSU costs were about 1/4.

[Mick]

My family had a pretty big reversal while I was a Sophomore. Parents declared bankruptcy and were being sued for more than everything they had. Prior to that, my parents had several million in assets and a self owned business. Stanford responded to these changes and provided a pretty good financial aid package for me. I ended up graduating with about $17K which was not tiny in 1999 terms when my starting salary was about $45K a year, but certainly manageable.

That's basically what I was getting at.  My friend's family was literally in the same boat, though he hasn't declared bankruptcy yet.  Stanford was generous (and in my view normal for an institution with an endowment its size), the other institution was not, and the kicker was that the other institution regularly advertises that their students don't graduate with any debt.  True on its surface, because it rarely extends loans to students, but parent loans are its chief financing tool.

Snorlax's comments are also 100% accurate.  In fact, if you go back further, my senior year in high school was 1979.  The regular student loan that anyone could get was $2,500 which was about what San Jose State would cost, inclusive of room and board.  SCU was $6,800 when I started in 1980, $8k when I left in 1984 all in.  Nominal household income in 1980 was $16,671, so private school tuition was about 40% of nominal household annual income and CSU costs were about 1/4.