Heaven's Gate

Those are some deep discounts, especially when one considers the skyrocketing cost of attending public universities. In 2004, public college tuition rose more than 10 percent on average across the country, according to a College Board survey "Trends in College Pricing 2005." Tuition and room and board at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill now costs more than $10,000 a year for in-state students -- and more than $23,000 a year for out-of-state students. With room and board, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor costs in-state students more than $16,000 a year. For out-of-staters, it's $34,000 a year.

"Institutions like ours have done an excellent job of late at reaching out to a more diverse pool," Harvard's Lewis says. "Lots of students look at all these options and find that Harvard would be cheaper."

Ehrenberg says it's a question of class, with those in the middle getting squeezed. "For the very wealthy, cost is irrelevant. For the lower-income students, they often end up paying less than they'd pay to go to their state schools. The real question is what about middle-class kids."

That's only half the argument. Lower-income students get need-based money from state schools, too. And most of the students (or parents) desperate to get into an Ivy are not from lower-income groups. They are the strivers who are paying private education consultants to get their kids into Duke and Brown. Most of them are middle class, which for the sake of this argument includes anyone to whom $160,000 for four years of tuition would be a real dent in the wallet -- or the vast majority of Americans. If these parents are lucky enough to have good state schools that their children can attend for in-state costs -- and both Maryland and Virginia feature several -- there are significant savings. With room and board, the University of Maryland at College Park rings in at about $16,000 a year. The University of Virginia is about $14,000 a year. That's without any aid, need-based or otherwise.

The Pressures and Making the Right Choice

THERE ARE THE OTHER COSTS of attending an exclusive private college, particularly in the hyper-competitive environment of 2006. People are spending big money on getting their children accepted, which increasingly involves hiring an independent education consultant to help guide them through the application process.

There are about 1,000 such full-time consultants in the United States, says Mark Sklarow, executive director of the Independent Educational Consultants Association, and that number has doubled in the last five years. The consultants affiliated with his group normally charge around $140 an hour or a flat fee of roughly $2,800. Bev Taylor, founder and director of the New York-based firm The Ivy Coach, says she charges $21,000 to win a son or daughter a spot at Harvard or Yale.

Sklarow says most consultants focus less on getting kids into Ivies and more on matching students with schools that are right for them. But he acknowledges that the admissions pressure cooker has gotten out of hand. The problem, he says, is college has gotten so expensive that parents often feel that if they are on the hook for a ridiculous amount of money, "it better be something I've heard of." At the same time, elite colleges have become so selective it's no longer simply a matter of grade-point averages and SAT scores. And that makes the environment more tense.

"What does it really take to get into Harvard?" Sklarow asks. "Who knows?" People need to stop worrying about finding the magic formula to get into Harvard or Yale, he says. "There is enough research to show how you do in life has nothing to do with where you went to college, but it is just very hard to convince the parents."

Dante Chinni is a Washington writer. He will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at 1 p.m. at washingtonpost.com/liveonline.

Where They Went and Why

We asked five National Honor Society students who graduated from Fairfax County public high schools in 1990 to tell us how they chose their colleges, how much they cost and how the choices affected their lives.

Lorna Haughton

Washington and Lee