For centuries, Harvard University was the only show in town in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a prosperous enclave just over the Charles river from Boston.
Today, with an endowment of $37.6bn (the largest in the world) and a yearly tuition fee of $63,025 (among the highest in the US), Harvard is home to one of the largest populations of affluent young people in the US.
In fact, the only thing harder than getting into Harvard — which this year accepted only 5.2 per cent of applicants, a record low — might be finding a property nearby. In March, the median price of a home in Cambridge reached $2.22m, up a dizzying 45.9 per cent from March 2015, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.