[jonchang]

> I think that what this means in the long-run is that this small number of very highly resourced private colleges (Ivies, a lot of the small New England liberal arts schools, Duke, MIT, etc.) will be able to sustain "normal" people going there on the need-blind aid, and lower-ranked private institutions (out of the top 50-100 schools) will probably close if they can't afford to offer that level of aid.

The term here to look for is "tuition discount rate" which is how many students actually pay the full price. You are correct in suggesting that high discount rates mean that only the extremely well-resourced schools will be able to compete for students who aren't able to afford the full price of college. Here's IHE's summary of a study about 2020's numbers:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/05/20/private-colle...

> “Tuition discounting strategies come at a heavy cost for many colleges and universities, especially those that forgo a significant amount of tuition revenue to expand educational affordability for students and/or to meet enrollment goals,” the study said.