> The median family income of a student from Princeton is $186,100, and 72% come from the top 20 percent. About 1.3% of students at Princeton came from a poor family but became a rich adult.
$180K is like 1-1.5x the median family income in a high CoL area in the US, so that's actually about what in line with what I would expect. You're not poor, sure, but it's not close to the kind of rich the original comment is implying when clubbing him with billionaires. A kid whose family earns $186K/yr isn't exactly on the fast track to becoming the next Jeff Bezos.
About the fast track portion sure, but otherwise, really, no. The median household income in NYC is about $100,000. San Francisco is about $90,000. Even at the high end of your estimate that's falling up to 25% short of $180k.
Also it's really not proper to take the highest cost of living areas in this situation and say "it's okay they're kind of close to $180,000!"
Taking the outliers as examples to support the idea that the average family meets it is close to the median is really a bad comparison. Most of the country doesn't live in those areas. It would only be an appropriate comparison if Princeton received most if their students from those areas, and they don't.
Princeton definitely does (unintentionally) bias admissions towards major metro areas. It's just way easier to have a good application in these places.
$180k is not "working class," period. I don't make $180k and I live in Seattle working in a tech-adjacent field. You claiming that it is is like saying a 14 year old is almost 15 which is almost legal driving age and basically an adult in terms of responsibility, so it's pretty much the age of the majority at 18.
I went to a big state school that was respectable but not Princeton. I still wouldn't say most students there were from the "working class" by the common definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_class
> The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in waged or salaried labour, especially in manual-labour occupations and industrial work.
How many Princeton kids had parents who worked construction? Plumbing, drywalling, tar roofing? I'll guess: very few.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobilit...