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

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#291

Post by esaym » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 9:33 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…

>FAFSA still considers you a dependent until you're 24

You can certainly "game" the system still. One could easy join the military, from there you'd get out around that age, they you'd be independent and you'd still have a GI bill to pay for most of it.

Or like me, I went to a tech school for aviation maintenance, graduated in 1 year, started working full time at age of 20. But by 21, I knew this wasn't the right field for me (too low pay for the amount of work required). I saved my money, quit when I was 24 and enrolled in a 4 year uni for CS full time with only $5k in my bank account.

I lived with my grandparents that were about 40 miles from the uni. The $5k got me through one year just fine since I didn't have to pay for rent or food. For the second year, I went back into the aviation field as a contractor making $22 an hour. After 6 months I had $10k in the bank. I then started my second year of college but to my surprise, since I hadn't filed with the IRS the past year and claimed an income of $0 in the previous year, I then qualified for about $6k in pell grants. So with $10k and pell grants, I went to college full time for another 4 years and graduated debt free (yes, it took me 5 years to graduate, perhaps I'm a little slow..). Actually not totally debt free, I still pay $50 a month for my tech school degree loan from 15 years ago...

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#292

Post by mprev » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 9:36 PM UTC

aabajian wrote: post #4

This is amazing. I graduated from medical school two years ago with $300,000 in debt. I'm a software developer on the side and would love to stop residency to try a healthcare startup and/or pursue a research, but the risk is too great - I need the attending salary to pay off the debt.

I think the debt level is crazy. But it sounds like you wish you’d had a free medicine degree so that you could be free not to practise medicine. I’d think if you get the degree for free then you almost should feel more obligated to practise.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#293

Post by alasdair_ » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 9:36 PM UTC

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #84

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…

> a wealthy Stanford alumni Grammar tip: In English, the word "alumnus" is typically declined as it would be in Latin. Especially amongst academics, I'd say. So if you're writing for that audience, the appropriate forms of "alumnus" are, I think, as follows [0]: "alumnus" - One male, or one person of unspecified sex. "alumna" - One female. "alumnae" - Multiple females. "alumni" - Multiple persons whose sex is all mal…

If you insist on being pedantic, at least be correct.

"alumnum" is the correct Latin term for a singular person of undetermined sex.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#294

Post by johnny313 » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 9:40 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 joined the military to get out a bad family situation, after a tour in Iraq I was considered financially independent on the FAFSA due to my veteran status. That designation, in combination with my veteran education benefits, allowed me to pay for school.

While I am thankful it worked out for me, I know this is not a route open to everyone. Unless your family has the financial means (or you get a great scholarship), I am not sure there are many ways to go to college without getting into significant debt.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#295

Post by pitaj » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

moorhosj wrote: post #288

nostromo wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

== That would give financiers pause and would put an upper bound on what many universities could charge.== It would also limit the pool of people who could get a loan for college in the first place. Maybe we can take a page from other developed countries who don't seem to have the same problem. It seems to be a pattern in America where we act like a problem has no answers, meanwhile the rest of the world contains man…

Remember when college used to be cheap enough for people to afford working summers? I don't remember because that was before my time, but that was also before the subsidies and loans were made available by the feds. Turns out, if you dump money into an industry while increasing demand and not changing supply, prices will increase.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#296

Post by Havoc » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

How? Medical is one of the most expensive courses to provide.

I mean I love this, but who is footing the bills on this & are we sure they won't taint the results with ulterior motives...

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#297

Post by pitaj » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 9:44 PM UTC

megamindbrian2 wrote: post #262

NTDF9 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The problem is that government subsidizes loans. It doesn't do something like capped match. The government should just say, "We will cover your need-based education burden up to $20,000". Something like this would make most state schools accessible to most…

This sounds like government should pay people subsidiaries directly. Like an HSA but for more than just health. If you use the account for school it's tax free otherwise there are fee or the transaction is declined. How much more amazing would service from utilities be if they had to go through customer to get the same subsidiaries they get now.

Or, we could try just doing none of that, like back when college was actually affordable!

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#298

Post by amanaplanacanal » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 9:45 PM UTC

mcny wrote: post #274

nostromo wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 insa…

Wait, you are suggesting that medicaid, food stamps and low-income housing assistance should be offered to everybody? I don't think I have heard this suggested before. I'll have to ponder this.

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#299

Post by chimeracoder » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #287

chimeracoder wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm convinced that it's the cost structure, implemented by many-to-many negotiation between providers and insurers, that drives the uniquely high cost of the US health care system. (Unique as in twice as much per capita as the rest of the industrialized world.) Japan's system is structurally very similar to ours - employer-provided private insurance - with one key difference. In Japan, pricing for all medical goods…

So is Medicare paying more than similar systems in other countries, or less, or about the same? And if Medicare is paying more than, say, Japan, but it's still not enough to cover the costs in America, what is going on structurally with the other 60% of the medical system? Because there's something structurally broken here. It's not mere profiteering - it's more like a feedback loop. For-profit medicine works effecti…

> So is Medicare paying more than similar systems in other countries, or less, or about the same?

You can't compare the raw dollar values because the economies aren't the same - $5 in New York doesn't mean the same as $5 in Tulsa, OK or $5 in London. That's why things like PPP comparisons exist (except you can't use a PPP comparison in a specific vertical like this to answer your question, because that is the very question you're asking in the first place; it'd be a tautology).

But there is an easy answer to the question, because Medicare is paying less than what would be necessary to sustain a medical practice, if you assumed that all doctors, nurses, secretaries, and janitors worked for free, and if you assumed that building and office space were free and required zero maintenance. We know that because we know they reimburse less than COGS, which is why we know their rates are nowhere near sustainable by any standards, let alone compared to other countries.

> It's not mere profiteering - it's more like a feedback loop.

Yes, that's exactly what's happening. It's a positive feedback look (in the literal sense; it's not a positive outcome for us).

The positive feedback loop comes from the fact that Medicare has neither a mandate nor an incentive to reimburse rates that are remotely sustainable, so it sets rates that are arbitrarily low. Providers are forced to accept these, and then pass them on to private health insurers. Private health insurers ultimately pass these costs on to patients in the form of higher premiums, but patients have no choice in the matter, because they can't choose providers based on how much the provider will overcharge their health insurer[0]. They can't choose providers based on price at all, because there's no price transparency in the system. And there's no price transparency in the system because that opacity is essentially mandated by law[1], and it's necessary for this system in which Medicare uses private insurers to essentially pad its own budget (by reducing its costs far below what would otherwise be sustainable if they were truly the only payer in the market).

> For-profit medicine works effectively and affordably in at least one other country with a cost of living otherwise on par with ours

Which country are you referring to? Truthfully speaking, every country has a for-profit system in that their healthcare systems are still subject to a profit motive (yes, that includes government-run systems like the IHS and NHS). Most other countries with comparable development levels to the US use privately-run systems anyway, so I'm not sure I understand which one country would be relevant to single out.

[0] Which is a different question from how much they (the patient) will be charged

[1] Not directly, of course, but indirectly - that opacity is the natural outcome of this setup

Re: NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students

#300

Post by robotresearcher » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 9:47 PM UTC

amdavidson wrote: post #244

naveen99 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are giving up interest on a rather large endowment.

An endowment that wouldnt exist except for the free tuition.

Part of this money could only have been raised by a free tuition program. But many top med schools have somehow accrued huge endowments without offering free tuition. So that part may not be enormous.

It’s an awesome program for these students.