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Originally Posted by todeen
To those not familiar, BYU is subsidized by church members' monthly donations. Tuition is not subsidized for non-members as far as I know.
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For non-members, the cost is about double that of members.
At the same time, if memory serves, the relatively few non-members (maybe 1% of the student body) who attend are mostly on the football team, many of whom have scholarships. From my experience, the majority of the remaining non-members come from conservative backgrounds (including foreign countries) who are looking for a US education without the party culture.
When I was at BYU, in rough percentages, the church paid for about 70% of the cost, with alumni donations covering 10%, and 20% from tuition. It's possible that the percentages have moved over the years.
There's no question that this school is not for everyone. I'm not advocating that someone should attend simply because it's a good deal. But there are plenty of public universities where in-state tuition is in the $3k-$6k per semester range. And most community colleges are less. So it's not like there are no good schools that are relatively affordable.
I will also disclose that my son was also accepted to Stanford. They declined to offer him an academic scholarship, and he didn't qualify for need-based aid. Tuition + room/board at Stanford ~$75k per year. He decided not to attend Stanford, primarily because $300k for an undergraduate education seemed like a whole lot of bread, particularly for an 18-year old boy who changes his major every 2 weeks, and therefore has no ability to assess whether his TBD major is even offered at Stanford, or whether that TBD major is a major where Stanford excels.