Given the amount, that's actually fairly unlikely to be from the Ivy League education. Generally Ivy League schools cost less (sometimes way less) than public schools unless your family makes more than ~130-150k combined and/or has fairly substantial assets.
One possible way for it to happen is if a student's parents have a high income, are unwilling to pay for the student's education and force the student to shoulder the financial burden, and the student does not argue his/her case to the financial aid office. Another possible way is if the family has a relatively high pre-existing net worth, but low income, and is unwilling to spend the income, and again the student shoulders the debt.
I was accepted to MIT and could not realistically afford it despite my parents having a low-medium household income. I chose a lesser private school that offered me a full scholarship instead.
I'm in my 30s-40s - was entering college before need-blind was a thing. It absolutely happens.
Oh I don't doubt that top-tier universities can still be a tough call when the alternative is a free ride, especially from 20+ years ago. In retrospect my comment left out the fact that a substantial portion of students admitted to Ivy league schools (or MIT, all part of the Overlap Group that got prosecuted by the Justice Department back in the early 90s for student aid price-fixing) do in fact get full scholarships for other schools, which can make the calculus for these schools less rosy (e.g. 8k per year, while cheaper than a 20k state school, still is a lot more than 0).
It's just usually not the case that you'll graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, at least these days. It's quite rare IIRC among students receiving financial aid to graduate with more than several thousand dollars of debt from an Ivy over four years, and if you go back several decades I'm fairly certain those numbers go up, but I'd be rather shocked if they went up by more than an order of magnitude.
The OP got really screwed by the Singaporean situation, where if you don't fulfill the post-graduation government work posting obligations, the Singaporean government will claw back all the money it gave you for college plus interest.
I'd be that most Ivy League students have parents making more than $130-150k combined, probably substantially more. That's only a middle class income, and at least anecdotally most Ivy League students I know tend to come from upper class families.
Tuition alone is $50k/yr, which would equate to $250k for a 4-year degree not accounting for living costs. Even at 50% off the sticker price, you're looking at over $125k in debt upon graduation.
> Pew Research Center defines middle-class or middle-income households as those with incomes that are two-thirds to double the 2016 U.S. median household income of $57,617. According to this formula, Pew determined that middle-class Americans have incomes ranging from approximately $45,200 to $135,600.
Call it whatever you want, but there's a huge difference between $135k/yr household income split among 3 kids in an expensive metro area where a house in the suburbs costs $600k+, and $300k/yr with 1 kid in a low cost of living area.
in my case this is pretty much what happened, except with the singapore government loaning money at 10% compound interest via a scholarship, which i had to break due to being assigned to a terrible job post graduation.
i may be book smart but ive made some colossal screwups in my life.
Oof. Yeah that'll get you. I've heard quite a few horror stories about the post-graduation work obligations that get attached to Singaporean government scholarships and that'll probably get you hit with a double-whammy since the school may discount part or all of your financial aid based on the government scholarship.
My impression is that at least for the last two decades, loans have made up a significant minority of Ivy league financial aid and most of it has come in the form of grant money. I think loans started getting phased out right around 15 years ago.
One possible way for it to happen is if a student's parents have a high income, are unwilling to pay for the student's education and force the student to shoulder the financial burden, and the student does not argue his/her case to the financial aid office. Another possible way is if the family has a relatively high pre-existing net worth, but low income, and is unwilling to spend the income, and again the student shoulders the debt.