NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students • Hacker News Board

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#271

Post by bogomipz » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 8:34 PM UTC

>"School officials worry that rising tuition and soaring loan balances are pushing new doctors into high-paying fields and contributing to a shortage of researchers and primary care physicians."

It's worth noting that NYU tuition for regular undergrad is $50K before room and board and $68K with room and board [1].

The cynic in me has to wonder if they share the same concern for the rest of the legion of debtors they are churning out every year.

I'm not doubting the importance of research and primary care physicians in our society. But six figure debt loads for university are commonplace in the US. And are likely causing skew in career choices in non-medial fields as well.

I also have to think that there's something in this arrangement for NYU and that there are motives outside of just societal altruism here. I just don't know what those are. Research money? 501(c)(3) maintenance? Something else?

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/01091...

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#272

Post by trylist » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 8:35 PM UTC

pitaj wrote: post #208

monocasa wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK. The same thought process led me to not being able to complete college due to financial reasons. Despite being emancipated, FAFSA still considers you a dependent until you're 24. I was told that only with documentation of leaving an abusive household would a dependency exception grant be applied. So according to FAFSA I was supposed to use all this money that I didn't have to pay for college. By 24 I had dropped…

College is expensive because so much money is available in the forms of subsidies and loans. If the federal government stopped guaranteeing loans, and cut back on other subsidies, the cost of college would be much much lower.

That's backwards. College is expensive because demand is extremely high. Subsidies increase that demand by making college affordable for most, but the suggestion that the subsidies themselves are the problem is plain wrong. We wanted an educated workforce, we've got one. We can say we don't want one, but to blame our efforts to educate people as the problem with education is not productive. We either educate people or we don't. We increased demand on purpose (and we should have!). Of course prices are going to go up! Normally supply would expand to keep up, but something is rotten in education. Teachers get paid a pittance, there were several high profile accreditation frauds, and the natural inclination towards prestige as worth more than the actual diploma combine to seriously limit our ability to expand and mitigate prices.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#273

Post by conanbatt » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 8:36 PM UTC

justonepost wrote: post #240

So 650M is enough for NYU. The top 10 universities have endowment funds > 10B. Shouldnt they all be full rides for everyone as well?

They are private institutions, you can try to persuade them of that at any point.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#274

Post by mcny » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 8:37 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #220

pitaj wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College is expensive because so much money is available in the forms of subsidies and loans. If the federal government stopped guaranteeing loans, and cut back on other subsidies, the cost of college would be much much lower.

This seems to be a pattern in America. People call for X to be more affordable > government subsidizes X > X absorbs all subsidies and becomes even more expensive > people call for X to be socialized. Maybe instead we should start to unwind student financing. For example: let students discharge student loans via bankruptcy. That would give financiers pause and would put an upper bound on what many universities could…

> For example: let students discharge student loans via bankruptcy.

Ataturk's reply to this is dead below but I must agree with the (spirit of the) comment. While I support letting students discharge loans via bankruptcy, I VEHEMENTLY oppose making this applicable to loans already signed. This is absolutely ridiculous and anyone who supports this kind of position should be barred from public office on grounds of insanity.

EDIT: I also think income and means testing ought for any government program or service ought to be illegal. You cannot say "you must make below $n to be eligible for this government program". I know the economists in the audience will bellow and bicker and say that we have limited resources that we must allocate "logically" but guess what macroeconomics is nonsense anyway because out here in the real world people don't behave logically. We need to make it against the law to use income, means, or property testing for any government program or service. Can't afford to offer it to the entire population regardless of income? Either increase taxes or rollback the program. Can't have it both ways.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#275

Post by eftychis » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 8:40 PM UTC

eugeniub wrote: post #258

pitaj wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College is expensive because so much money is available in the forms of subsidies and loans. If the federal government stopped guaranteeing loans, and cut back on other subsidies, the cost of college would be much much lower.

Considering the millions of people struggling to pay for college and desperate for lower tuition, this is totally untrue. This is like saying, "if we didn't have food stamps, food would be half the cost."

Actually providing an "unlimited" stream of capital, does cause inflation. That's global fact: e.g. New Zealand real estate has started becoming unaffordable [google -- it was in the news these days] due to U.S. and other millionaires pouring in cash.

I am not going to make the analysis for food stamps. Maybe some stores would have lower prices, no idea, as I don't know the model of issuing food stamps.

Think it like this: Alice comes to your store and says I am going to pay 50% of whatever Bob buys. Bob has spending power x. Now Bob, suddenly can buy 2x. However, Bob can buy that many stereos costing x (wlog) and is probably going to just spend x/2 and let Alice pay the other x/2.

Or you can say, well I am the only store in town selling stereos, so now stereos cost 2x, as I know you can afford them. Bob, as he has to buy the stereo, is going to pay x and the store owner is going to pocket an extra x, as it is a monopoly (or oligopoly) and thus can keep the prices high.

So, if you substitute Bob with an average student and Alice with the government, you will see that the student kept paying the same (at best -- you have to account for market pressures here, general currency inflation etc which cause more inflation) and the government has to keep paying now (or you know break the oligopoly; set different rules).

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#276

Post by ericseppanen » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 8:41 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #120

sf_rob wrote: post #32

I'll probably be downvoted on a forum like this, but I worry about the most successful universities using their funds to subsidize those who would be fine without it. I was actually made aware of this by a wealthy Stanford alumni which has a fairly broad program for undergraduate tuition assistance. Graduates of mid/low tier universities seem more and more likely to have to compete with better credentialed people wit…

IDK. The same thought process led me to not being able to complete college due to financial reasons. Despite being emancipated, FAFSA still considers you a dependent until you're 24. I was told that only with documentation of leaving an abusive household would a dependency exception grant be applied. So according to FAFSA I was supposed to use all this money that I didn't have to pay for college. By 24 I had dropped…

regarding "development job... putting me outside the income level":

I faced the same situation; after being rejected, all I had to do was file some extra paperwork ("special circumstances") saying that I'd left my job and no longer had any income.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#277

Post by DoreenMichele » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 8:42 PM UTC

sf_rob wrote: post #32

I'll probably be downvoted on a forum like this, but I worry about the most successful universities using their funds to subsidize those who would be fine without it. I was actually made aware of this by a wealthy Stanford alumni which has a fairly broad program for undergraduate tuition assistance. Graduates of mid/low tier universities seem more and more likely to have to compete with better credentialed people wit…

Graduates of mid/low tier universities seem more and more likely to have to compete with better credentialed people with lower debt.

Or maybe it starts a trend that if you apply yourself and make sure you do really well at X, you can graduate without a lot of debt. Maybe this leads to a world where we get better at helping people find the thing they can excel at so they can qualify for the free ride and then be awesome at their profession after they graduation. And maybe this becomes a trend where other universities decide a full ride is the only thing that makes sense.

There is an S curve where rich people, who can afford to take risks, try new things. They get to winnow out what doesn't work. The things that succeed become popular and this makes them affordable to the masses.

But, first, someone needs to give it a shot. And that someone is usually pretty well-heeled.

I'm okay with that.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#278

Post by maym86 » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 8:44 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #264

hellllllllooo wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Those invisible fighter jets that don't work were a great investment. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a21957/wtf-35/ The US military is a publicly funded socialist entity. Interesting how that's ok for war but not for education.

By that definition, isn't every military a socialist entity?

Yes

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#279

Post by AngryData » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 8:46 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #120

sf_rob wrote: post #32

I'll probably be downvoted on a forum like this, but I worry about the most successful universities using their funds to subsidize those who would be fine without it. I was actually made aware of this by a wealthy Stanford alumni which has a fairly broad program for undergraduate tuition assistance. Graduates of mid/low tier universities seem more and more likely to have to compete with better credentialed people wit…

IDK. The same thought process led me to not being able to complete college due to financial reasons. Despite being emancipated, FAFSA still considers you a dependent until you're 24. I was told that only with documentation of leaving an abusive household would a dependency exception grant be applied. So according to FAFSA I was supposed to use all this money that I didn't have to pay for college. By 24 I had dropped…

I think not being able to default on your student loans is the main factor in rising costs. There is no reason not to give out a student loan of any amount if it is guaranteed money. And there are many people who struggled to graduate highschool, or people who have no idea what they want to do in life in any way, that are getting crazy large loans to go to very expensive and demanding schools and and are very likely to drop out and have nothing substantial in return. They might only go for one year but then BAM, now they got near $30,000 in debt to pay with little to no job experience and no degree.

With students able to get loans of nearly any amount, the schools have no reason not to raise tuition prices, and that extra money ends up feeding a bunch of administrative bloat, a significant amount of which gets turned around into crazy marketing and advertising schemes to trick more fresh highschool graduates into taking out loans to pay for the crazy tuition. The first time in most of these people's lives where they are expected to take out a significant loan of money and are easily manipulated into potential financial traps. For many of them it is the first financial decision in their entire life and it rivals the cost of buying a house.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#280

Post by monocasa » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 8:47 PM UTC

Reedx wrote: post #254

justonepost wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, College is expensive because it's horribly inefficient. Professors are paid terribly.

That would mean they're getting increasingly inefficient, significantly so? Given how much costs have increased. Certainly factors into the cost, but seems unlikely it's the key factor in the rising costs.

Why would it be unlikely?

> Interestingly, increased spending has not been going into the pockets of the typical professor. Salaries of full-time faculty members are, on average, barely higher than they were in 1970. Moreover, while 45 years ago 78 percent of college and university professors were full time, today half of postsecondary faculty members are lower-paid part-time employees, meaning that the average salaries of the people who do the teaching in American higher education are actually quite a bit lower than they were in 1970.

> By contrast, a major factor driving increasing costs is the constant expansion of university administration. According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.

> Even more strikingly, an analysis by a professor at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, found that, while the total number of full-time faculty members in the C.S.U. system grew from 11,614 to 12,019 between 1975 and 2008, the total number of administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183 — a 221 percent increase.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/the-real-r...