[blue11]

> International students usually pay a much higher effective tuition rate.

That might be true for other universities but not for Harvard and MIT, whose admissions are aid-blind and most international students there receive huge financial aid packages.

There are lower-ranked universities that have programs (usually Masters's ones) that are targeted towards foreign students who can pay a lot of money.

[mennis16]

According to QS only Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, and Amherst do need blind admissions for international students (surprised to not see Stanford on that list). So while in this instance I do not think it is driven by any direct financial motivation, the majority of even "top" US schools do appear to select international students in part on their ability to pay.

[blue11]

Yes, most "top" schools do not have Harvard's endowment, so they have to work with a limited budget. Still, their motivation is quite different from GP's suggestion that they are admitting international students to boost they finances. Anyway, we were talking about Harvard and MIT. I'll add one more thing, some universities do care about the well being of their students.

[speleding]

MIT's admission is need-blind (which is good), but many aid programs have some requirement attached that is hard to qualify for as a foreigner. I don't know of many foreign student in my class that had financial aid packages, let alone huge ones, so I would be interested if you have information to back up this claim.

[blue11]

At Harvard and MIT "need-blind" means that all admitted students receive a financial aid package, adjusted for the student's financial means, to make it work somehow. It's a combination of grants, loans, and presumed income from on-campus part-time jobs. At some other places "need-blind" may simply mean that admissions are granted regardless of financial needs, but financial aid is not guaranteed. Yes, federal grant and loan programs are not available to international students, but the universities have other resources (endowments, private loans, etc.)

As for sources... I am a former international student at a top US university and I know many others too. Almost no one I've met came from a rich foreign family.