Elites pay shocking sums for education, Bryan Caplan explains (in The Case Against Education):
Annual tuition and fees for high school students at Phillips Exeter Academy now run $37,000. Harvard University’s list price exceeds $45,000 a year. Students who live on campus pay even more. A child of privilege can easily consume a half million dollars of education before landing their first job.
The cost for a Good Student, who by assumption attends nearby public schools, is drastically lower. Instead of $37,000 a year for Exeter, he attends high school free of charge. Instead of $45,000 a year for Harvard, he pays in-state tuition at his local college—and unlike the elite, receives a lot of financial aid. For the bottom line, turn to the College Board’s annual Trends in College Pricing. This report tabulates the list price of college, then subtracts average financial aid to yield “net tuition.” For our Good Student, the final numbers are shockingly affordable. The out-of-pocket cost of a year of four-year college—tuition, fees, books, and supplies minus aid—sums to $3,662.59
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If you’re elite or near-elite, $3,662 per year for college sounds like con artistry. You might scoff, “I don’t know anyone who paid that.” Rather than dismiss the numbers, though, know you live in a bubble. When folks like you go to public universities, you pay close to list price. That doesn’t stop other kids from getting four-year degrees for less than the cost of a semester at Harvard.