affordable? Hahaha. Only if mommy and daddy pay for it. Otherwise, and unless you have a full scholarship, they are not worth the $ and decades of debt repayment.  Even $25k per year is too much. 

Yeah, unless you (meaning your parents) have this in cash, you're taking out loans you'll have to repay. Here's the reality:

- state school for $5k/year. Hell, make it $10k. X4 = $40k loan

- ivy school $50k/year. $200k loan.

Your starting salary will be $50k when you graduate from the state school. It will take you 10 years to pay off your loans at about $500/month. You will never make more than $100k/ year as an employee.

Your starting salary will be $55k when you graduate from the Ivy school. It will take you 20 years to pay off your loans at about $1300/month. You will never make more than $100k/ year as an employee. Read that again.

Unless you open your own business and/or have tuition in cash, the Ivy league education will never pay you back. Stop feeding that broken system. 

The real question is why?

Bowling_ball nailed it exactly!

I went to a private institution for my degree and ended up with over 100k in loans when all was finished. Came right out of school with a 45k salary and started paying it all back. Right out of school I was paying about 1200 a month to my lender.

That was a pretty big slice taken from those early paychecks and depending what city you end up in forget about having your own apartment. Your gonna have roomies for a while...

6 years later and I still dont make 100k but I sure do dream about it!

Hey just to add a slightly different perspective, I went to MIT for undergrad and they were very generous with financial aid. I expect the same is true for their masters programs, but I'm not at MIT for my masters degree. For MIT specifically, the hardest part is getting in, not getting funding. I can't speak to other ivies on this issue.

That said, I recommend applying to a variety of schools, some reach and some back-up. Don't count yourself out financially from any school until after you've received your offers. Once you're in, it's easier to contact current masters students in the program and ask about the availability of TA jobs and such.

I turned down a full-tuition package at Rice to pay about $5000/year at UT Austin, but I got a TA job after my first semester and now they're paying me to go there.

The 10 schools with the largest endowments amount to over $200 BILLION just sitting in their bank accounts. If they don't offer you a full ride, look elsewhere. 

Ironically, they are more likely to offer you a full scholarship if there is the possibility that your family is wealthy enough to later endow the school generously - $200k in exchange for a new building is a good deal.

Start an OnlyFans

Not worth it.