As John notes below, Harvard College’s admission rate dropped again—to a new low, just below 9%—for the coming academic year.

The increase in “selectivity,” mind you, comes not because Harvard’s curriculum is any more promising than it was last year, but because (so administrators think) going to school there has become all but free for anyone whose family makes below $60,000. (The only requirement for this increasingly large group of people is a ~$2,000 “student contribution” that can be covered by a job or, as is more often the case, by student loans). It amazes me to think that of the two schools I applied to—Harvard (where I was admitted on Early Action) and Montana State University—I would’ve graduated with more debt had I gone to the latter.

Anyways, if the rumor that Harvard (and Yale and Princeton, which both have similar grants programs) aren’t affordable hasn’t been dispelled, it should be. That said, one might speak for the propriety of Ivy grads accumulating some debt to show that life’s valuable things do have a cost.