I know a few international students with full-ride; I am also one of them. All you have to do is get in. Cornell offers need-aware aid, so they will provide aid that meets your financial context. If that means a full ride then they will give it to you. I have friends at Princeton so I know that Cornell can be stingy with their aid. (For example they don’t go over the exact amount you need). But then again schools like Princeton have way larger endowment funds. Anyway , long story short, you can absolutely get a full ride if that’s what you need. More on reddit.com

To get a feel for admissions chances and financial aid for internationals at any need-aware school, look at their common data set and compare certain numbers Section B2 — Number/Percentage of International Students Enrolled Section C2 — International Acceptance Rate Section G1 — Total Cost of Attendance Section H6 — Number/Percentage of Internationals Receiving Aid Section H6 — Average Aid For International Students H6/G1 — Percent of Total Cost Covered for International Students Things to look for: Is the school’s percentage of international students significantly lower — or higher — than average? Is the school’s admissions rate for international students significantly lower than the rate for domestic students What percent of internationals actually receive any aid? Is the percentage of international students receiving aid significantly lower than the percentage of domestic students receiving aid? How does the average aid package compare to the total cost of attendance? In the case of NYU, for instance The total number of international students = 7,710 (26%… 10% is typical for similar schools) International acceptance rate = not reported, but rule of thumb is one-quarter of overall acceptance rate for need aware schools… so figure 2.5% The total cost of attendance = $86,376 + $4,177 mandatory health insurance = $90,553 The number of international students receiving aid = 406 (5%) The average international aid package = $36,706 Percent of total cost covered = 40% Remaining cost to attend = $53,847 What conclusions can you draw from these numbers? About your likelihood of being admitted with your level of need? About the amount of aid you might receive? It’s pretty clear that NYU is not interested in enrolling international students who need financial aid… much less those who need full/near full aid. What they do obviously like, however, is full-pay international students… and lots of them. You can look at the same info for the other two schools. More on reddit.com

Simple — there are a lot of people who have a lot of money. The vast majority of people don’t. But 1-3% of the U.S. population can afford to pay full freight. In a country of 320 million people, that means that there are literally millions of people (3-6 million, roughly) who can easily write a check for the full tuition/room/board and not bat an eyelash. The cost of attending a prestigious college like Cornell is not a factor for these folks; it’s only about getting admitted. BTW, $240k is low. Tuition room and board is now running about $42k/semester. So a four-year Bachelors degree now costs about $336k. More on reddit.com

Your parents make $200K-$300K per year /and/ own property. Even assuming the low-ish end of that range, say $225K, and assuming that's their pre-tax salary, it means your parents keep a little over $150K per year after taxes. While colleges like Cornell are ridiculously expensive, it would also be ridiculous to argue that your parents would struggle to afford Cornell in any way. Your parents could pay 70K/year for your tuition, housing in Ithaca, food, healthcare, and more, while still having over 80K/year left over to cover all of their other expenses... which is more than some people's families make pre-tax in a year. You also mention your parents own property, so they likely don't even need to pay rent. They almost certainly pay property taxes, sure, but that's like 1.1% of value in the Bay Area, and might still come out to less than many families are paying in rent on an annual basis. The only situation in which your parents would struggle to pay for Cornell would be if they're also putting one or two other children through college at the exact same time. Then that would genuinely make a dent in their income and would be valid reason for requesting some financial aid. But you haven't mentioned having siblings who are also attending college so I assume this isn't the case. my parents will not fund my education at Cornell for anything over $26,000 This honestly sucks, and it's a shitty situation to be in. But unfortunately, that's between you and your parents. It's not like they "can't pay". If "not willing to pay" was a valid reason to get financial aid, then why would anyone's family, regardless of how many millions of dollars they're worth, ever "be willing" to pay for their child's tuition at Cornell? All they'd have to say is "no" and they'd get it for free. It's unfortunate, but the alternative isn't practical for a private institution like Cornell at this point in time. More on reddit.com