A friend of mine chose the college we went to specifically because she was told about all the need-based financial aid that's available to students like her.

You know, the kind that grew up learning to pick the mold off the bread and how awful government cheese was.

Imagine her surprise when there's no such thing as a free ride, and there wasn't actually so much available. Also, if you think there's enough "elite" universities around for America's poor (rural or otherwise) you're mistaken.

The real bottom line is, there's not much elite universities have to offer the rural life. Sure, there's certainly some places and jobs where it would help. For most people, and most jobs though, it's overkill.

[Edit] To clarify, if you've grown up in poverty or even lower-middle class in a central midwestern state, the travel costs of going to a uni on the coast is simply prohibitive. Add on top of that things that your peers will partake in (summer in the Hamptons or whatever) that you'll never be able to identify with. You'll always be on the outside, no matter what. Unless every high school graduate in the rural parts of the country decides to move to a big city, there's a whole lot more that a local technical school has to offer someone in that position.

As someone that grew up in the rural midwest and visits family there every year, there's not much rural life has to offer anyone in 2018, including jobs of any type.

Let's not romanticize this as Salt of the Earth Folk. In 25 years, where I grew up turned into Methlandia, complete with lowering lifespans, and lowering standards of living. It's heartbreaking really.

Technical schools don't really matter, because there isn't a job for you to be trained for. Either the job left, or if job is still there, there's a lot fewer open slots due to automation. That's just cold facts.

At the top schools, students from that background pay zero in tuition or room & board, and get a small stipend to help pay for textbooks and living expenses. (Source: based on my mother’s solidly middle class elementary school teacher salary, my college ended up being free the last 2 years circa 2010, and I had a roommate who was from a working class background and had a free ride + a stipend, based entirely on need-based aid.) I imagine if travel expenses are a severe hardship, the college can probably figure out a way to help.

It’s only a small fraction of the students at those schools who vacation in the Hamptons or whatever. Arguably the richest students have an outsized social influence, but most students are from an upper middle class background (top 10–15% by wealth/income, but not top 1%), and there are plenty of middle class and at least some working class students (though less than we might hope) at all of the elite American colleges.

The bigger problem for several students I knew from impoverished backgrounds was that they were not used to the scholastic demands of the school. Students at elite schools are expected to do a lot of reading every week, are expected to speak up and assert themselves in small discussion seminars, are expected to write competently at a level considerably beyond what many high schools expect, are expected to solve difficult nonstandard problems in their technical courses, etc. For someone unprepared it can be a big culture shock. The combination of being away from home and in a new social environment, having autonomy over (and lack of external structure for) time, and getting smacked with a very stiff workload can add up to a lot of stress even for the best prepared students. For someone who is feeling like they are behind or don’t belong and haven’t had a similar workload before it can be extra hard. Those kids were just as smart and hard-working as anyone there, just not as well prepared in some ways.

> I imagine if travel expenses are a severe hardship, the college can probably figure out a way to help.

In the case of my friend, your imagination did not line up with her reality. She managed to figure it out, but is saddled with a debt that will wipe out any gains it has gotten her for years to come.

Travel expenses can’t be more than a thousand bucks per term at the very extreme. For me flying across country cost a couple hundred bucks round trip twice a year. The median new college grad today makes about $50k right out of school, and more after a few years of experience.

What college did your friend go to where she was promised financial aid and then not offered what she expected? What kind of degree did she get (or drop out of) and what is she doing now? How many years of debt are we talking about? Are you sure the bulk of it is due to travel expenses? That seems prima facie implausible.

I know plenty of people with outrageous amounts of college debt (in the six figures), and have never heard of someone going deep into debt for travel expenses. (For comparison room & board + tuition is typically $50k+ per year, which is like 30–100 times larger than I would expect travel expenses to be.)