For one very good school that I am working with right now, with a Freshmen class of approximately 500 students, in the last two years, they have had roughly 25 “full-pay” students each year matriculate in the fall. In other words, roughly five percent of the enrolled students at an elite college pay the full sticker price.
I am not at liberty to divulge the name of the school, but I can tell you that this is not at all unusual among the schools that I have worked with over the previous 5 years.
Does the administration refer to those students as “suckers?” 😉
I wonder how the demography of that 5% compares to the rest of the freshman class?