Haha, what a bunch of bs. All that leadership quality, contribution to community, blah blah are just smoke and mirrors. The reality is more along the line of "as long as you graduated (w/ high GPA) from a top school, worked at GS/MS/M/B/B or any of the blue chip firms, and have a gmat score that's above 700". In general, GS/MS/M/B/B send 100% of their class to a top 5 school, and many mega funds (KKR, TPG, Carlyle etc) send 100% of their class to H/S/W or even just H/S. Do the analysts and associates at these places have more leadership quality than others? In most cases, no. But they were smart enough to get into a top undergrad, good enough to get a top-notch job right out of college, so they were destined to find their places at the top business schools.
Sure, I can't complain too much since I definitely got the benefits of this system. But seriously, you'd have to be very naive to believe that everyone has an equal chance at the top schools.
Oh and about tuition. Sure tuition alone isn't that expansive, but they forgot to add room and board, insurance, books, other fees, etc etc. I think the budget for most schools is $85-90K USD a year, not a small number by any means.