>Students who are financially disadvantaged get help, both from the universities and the government.
When "help" is defined as hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans that cannot be discharged, I laugh.
My family was in a below-average income bracket, and as the oldest son, my parents didn't have much money for us to go to school.
When I got into MIT and other elite schools, I was elated. Until I found out that "help" meant debt up to my ears. Eventually I realized it was unlikely to carry positive ROI over a full scholarship at any "lesser" university, which I was fortunate enough to earn.
But let's not act like the elite schools are handing out free money to go there. My test scores, GPA, athletic performance, and extracurriculars made me a very desirable choice for most elite schools. The only problem was that my family's unremarkable history and lack of funds wasn't a good match.
When did you go to school? Nowadays, every elite school gives grants rather than loans, and (for example) Stanford pays for all tuition for families making under 100k (and throws in room and board for < 60k).
I don't know if it is that things have changed recently, but I did see that schools were handing out free money (at least MIT did when I went there). I got sizable debt-free aid + small (4k/year) loans and I couldn't be more grateful. I know many friends that got much more aid, including monthly stipends to pay for food and other expenses.
It does seem that this is the exception rather than the rule, so I don't usually bring this up. You explicitly mentioned MIT though...
When "help" is defined as hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans that cannot be discharged, I laugh.
My family was in a below-average income bracket, and as the oldest son, my parents didn't have much money for us to go to school.
When I got into MIT and other elite schools, I was elated. Until I found out that "help" meant debt up to my ears. Eventually I realized it was unlikely to carry positive ROI over a full scholarship at any "lesser" university, which I was fortunate enough to earn.
But let's not act like the elite schools are handing out free money to go there. My test scores, GPA, athletic performance, and extracurriculars made me a very desirable choice for most elite schools. The only problem was that my family's unremarkable history and lack of funds wasn't a good match.