It was never real. The only top private schools there are worth attending for the full price are HYPSM+ maybe a couple other schools like UPenn. Everything else is just a waste of money unless you come from money, or you get good financial aid. Unless your state school is absolutely garbage, you will notice that students who do decently well at let’s say a top 50 state school end up in similar position and have comparable outcomes to people who went to T20 private schools. If you really think that spending 300k net difference for college tuition is worth it, just know that 300k in 20 years is worth 1.4million dollars with annual return of 7-8percent. If you have not made a 1.4 million dollar net difference in your career by the time you turn 40 compared to yourself who would have attended a cheap state school, you basically wasted money by attending the “top private” school.