> The secret is that many elite colleges give such generous financial aid that only the extremely wealthy are paying full freight. But it still makes the college looks good to have an astronomically high sticker price.
Unfortunately, this is not at all true for grad school. I'm from India and a large swathe of my friends from college are studying in the US without any sort of aid.
I did my PhD in physics in the USA, and for all of my fellow physics grad students, we not only had free tuition but we were given jobs (they didn't pay much but it was enough to live on). Ie, students were either given Research Assistant roles from their Adviser's funding, or Teaching Assistant roles by the department. The lucky ttudents with fellowships didn't need to teach at all and could focus full time from day one on research. (Of course this gives those fellowship students more ability to write papers early in their career, boosting their ability to win more fellowships later on, creating academias's own 1%/99% inequality, but that's a separate issue).
This was physics, and my understanding is that this is the case for most of the sciences.
It's extremely rare for a masters degree to be funded. Most PhD programs are, because PhD students provide cheap labor to the college in the form of TA and lab technician work.
Unfortunately, this is not at all true for grad school. I'm from India and a large swathe of my friends from college are studying in the US without any sort of aid.