my point was that your list appeared to be cherry-picked; you included Penn but not Harvard; you included Northwestern and dook but not Stanford; more critically, you included a bunch of schools ranked ahead of WF (who in a perfect capitalistic model *should* charge more than WF) and zero schools ranked below WF
I view Stanford, Harvard, and MIT as life-changing schools for almost all who graduate from there. I don't view WF (or most of the schools you list) the same way.
Not quite cherrypicked but yes my opinion based on what I know about these schools.
Penn and Harvard are very different institutions, despite both bearing the "ivy" badge of prestige. They attract different kinds of students, have different liberal arts requirements for degrees (something I'm thinking about when I'm thinking about wake's peers), attract different kinds of faculty, publish different kinds of research through their UP.
Likewise, I don't associate Northwestern and duke with Stanford, though this one is closer.
I originally wrote out something long and boring to point out how comparing wake to MIT or Harvard or even Stanford makes no sense, not because wake isn't "life changing" but because these schools have different missions. Sure an English major at wake would have had a similar experience in English at Stanford or Harvard ("Literature" at MIT is a different beast entirely...check it out), but the institutions themselves are more different than they are similar. I'm interested though in why non-academics (for whom these rankings are produced and to whom they matter) would think they're the same.
(NB: coincidental examples bc with the exception of northwestern (and duke, obviously), I've been awarded fellowships, taken courses, or worked at all of these schools.)
The truth is that none of these schools are like wake. Wake is incredibly unusual, perhaps even unique in the education we offer undergrads. Some of that specialness diminishes as we add programs and increase enrollments, but there are still very few places that resemble our combination of SLAC experience and big research.
Where I think your logic fails is the assumption that a "better" school should naturally cost more. Tuition factors in a million different things.
Question for you, based on our conversation: what should wake charge (assuming it wants to maintain its reputation)?