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Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60 (nytimes.com)
Students at elite colleges are even richer than experts realized, according to a new study based on millions of anonymous tax filings and tuition records. At 38 colleges in America, including five in the Ivy League -- Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, Penn and Brown -- more students came from the top 1 percent of the income scale than from the entire bottom 60 percent. From a report on the NYTimes (alternate non-paywall link): Roughly one in four of the richest students attend an elite college -- universities that typically cluster toward the top of annual rankings (you can find more on our definition of "elite" at the bottom). In contrast, less than one-half of 1 percent of children from the bottom fifth of American families attend an elite college; less than half attend any college at all. Colleges often promote their role in helping poorer students rise in life, and their commitments to affordability. But some elite colleges have focused more on being affordable to low-income families than on expanding access. "Free tuition only helps if you can get in," said Danny Yagan, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the authors of the study.
I don't think it's even a matter of legacy enrollment.
The elite school I'm acquainted with is MIT as my wife has her degree from there and spent several years interviewing students that had applied as part of their evaluation process. They do not consider money or othewise having an ability to pay when students apply, but on the other hand most students do come from households with means. This happens because students from households with means do better in school than students from households without means.
A specific case I remember was a student that had applied but wasn't going to go higher in high school mathematics than Trigonometry. This student wasn't going to get any Calculus instruction in high school at all. In order to get to Calculus in the school system as a senior, one had to do well enough in mathematics in the fifth grade in order to end up in the Honors Math in the sixth grade, to then take Pre-Algebra as a seventh grader and the first-year Algebra class as an eighth grader, so one could take second-year Algebra, Geometry, and Trig/Pre-calculus in one's freshman, sophomore, and junior years, to have time left one one's academic schedule for Calculus as a senior. Otherwise one has to take one of these mathematics classes, typically Geometry as it ties-in the least with the rest, as a summer-school make-up class in order to get ahead.
So, decisions/involvement/circumstances for the parents and household when the student is ten years old ultimately impact if that student, eight years later, will have the prerequisites to compete at an elite college. Poor parents, single parents, parents that end up with stressors that prevent them from committing the time and attention to their child's upbringing will, on average, harm that child's educational performance and will lead to reduced opportunities simply because the student does not have the academic basis in order to attend these schools.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Exactly my point. How is Harvard any more affordable for a family 100k a year than 10k?
At Harvard, a family that makes $100K/year will only pay at most $10K/year (Harvard caps tuition at 10% for income under $150k). Generally it makes it cheaper than a public university.