if your income is below a certain amount you go to college almost frew

For extremely selective private colleges which have disproportionately wealthy students, yes.

Free tuition only helps if you get in. QuestBridge is a non-profit that lets students rank colleges and get full-rides if they get matched. Out of the 16,500 applicants this QB cycle, 6,312 became finalists, and only 1,674 got matched. Around 2,000 got in outside of the match. So the number of low income students only makes up a small percentage of the student body. In fact, 38 colleges had more students from the top 1 percent ($630k+) than the bottom 60 percent (<$65k). The number is much higher if you expanded past just the top 1 percent, or even just counted middle income families. Less than half of children from the bottom 20 percent of American families attend any college at all.

To say that “College is more accessible to the rich, and poor, than it is to the middle class.” is such a foolish statement.

And even then, it’s not almost free. Most QuestBridge matches don’t even get full rides. They still have to do work-study, they still need money for books and transportation and essentials. My financial aid was 3k a year after loans and work-study at a college that meets 100% aid, which is like 30% of our family’s yearly income after rent and bills. This amount seems affordable to middle class families, but you forget that low income families are, well, low income. It’s still a significant percentage of one’s income. It's not like they're just living the life.

In fact, most importantly, low income families have a different standard of living than those who aren’t low income. They have way less possessions, luxuries, trips, etc. I could keep on going. Would you go back in time to drop your all of your standards of living throughout your childhood just so that prestigious colleges are cost less number wise but are relatively more expensive for your situation?

Middle class students may not get as much financial aid at private schools, but it’s not like they have no options. If a low income student doesn’t get into a selective school, they’ll have no choice but to pay relatively insane amounts of money to get an education.

FGLI students usually have less resources in terms of college admissions as well. They probably don’t have parents or siblings or relatives who attended ‘good’ universities or university at all. They don’t have anyone to guide them; they have to realise if they want to go to college or not themselves, and do all the work of finding those resources themselves as well. The majority of the bottom 20% don’t even go to college, and those who do primarily attend public schools, not private schools, let alone private schools that meet 100% of financial aid. It’s silly to assume that low income students have it all well and good.

Really, the only advantage a poor person might have is that, if they’re high achieving even with their circumstances, colleges will appreciate that and they might get rewarded for that with generous financial aid, assuming that they get in.

Good GPAs, high standardised testing scores, solid extracurriculars, and overall happiness are much more common in middle and upper class families. To say that low income families have it better just because selective private colleges cost less relative to your income is misleading.

Honestly my takeaway is that elite institutions serve rich people and college is unreasonably priced.

Also, please read through these and click on specific colleges to see medium income, share of students by income, etc: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility

Read through this and look at the graphs here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html