Ivy league schools tend to be very generous with their financial aid. That is the only reason I was able to go to one with my parents making ~40K. They made it cheaper for me to attend their school than to attend community college. Based on what I saw during undergrad, it was typically those people like me, first generation college kids who don't come from any kind of wealth or went to huge public high schools that didnt prepare them for college, that struggled the most simply b/c the playing field is pretty uneven when a huge chunk of your peers went to elite prep schools and were taught how to "do" college, how to network, how to talk with professors etc.
I'm also not too sure about the grade inflation thing, at least when it comes to the science classes. I've taken science classes at both an Ivy and my big state school (TX), and while I had to bust my butt to scrape a B- before, it wasn't too difficult to get A's at my state school...the difference is real. I will say that the humanities classes at my undergrad were pretty easy to do well in, which is why my non-sci gpa is way higher. I'm not bitter or anything (although I'm sure I sound it lol), I recognize it was my choice where to attend college, and I wouldn't trade it b/c the education was phenomenal, even though I probably would look a lot better on paper academically had I gone somewhere else.
