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Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

nytimes.com

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Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#111

Post by freyir »

akulbe wrote: post #63

I realize I'm likely going to be a dissenting opinion here… but I'm not sure this is a good investment. Unless you're going to enter a field that requires the pedigree that starts with college (i.e. medicine, law, engineering), it's arguable that college isn't even worth the tuition you pay for it. Like another commenter says, they have no incentive to do anything that will reduce costs. The quality of the education…

> It feels like colleges are turning into breeding grounds for social justice warriors

Is this really the case? All colleges probably have a vocal minority of activists, and some colleges have more than others. But I'd guess the vast majority of students are still there to learn and have fun?

> It feels like the onus should be on the colleges to make costs more reasonable, rather than getting another handout from a rich benefactor (which will not last long).

Agreed, this won't do anything to solve the underlying problem. Lately, it seems like throwing money at a problem is all we prepared to do (see also the Proposition 10 homeless tax).

Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#112

Post by gnulinux »

synaesthesisx wrote: post #44
DannyBee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For undergrad, yes. Having interviewed 500+ people at this point (and screened many many more resumes and github accounts), i'd there are rarely, if ever, meaningful differences in quality of candidate based on where they got their CS degree from. I see much greater variation in masters/graduate candidates than in undergrad.

Agreed - I've interviewed candidates with no CS degree that outperformed ones from Harvard etc. In fact many of the best ones were self-taught...

I'm finding it very hard to believe a student who did well in MIT or Berkeley can "on average" be outperformed by someone who is self-taught. I'm not suggesting all students in top schools are good, or nobody self-taught is good, but in my experience there is a strong correlation. I'm also surprised that (1) people had a differing experience in this thread and (2) I'm downvoted for expressing my experience.

Disclaimer: I taught CS classes in both Berkeley and MIT.

Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#113

Post by evanelias »

jseliger wrote: post #2

This is a fine thing to do with $1.8B and that amount could be used in worse ways. Still: Together, the federal and state governments should make a new commitment to improving access to college and reducing the often prohibitive burdens debt places on so many students and families. There may be no better investment that we can make in the future of the American dream — and the promise of equal opportunity for all. At…

I understand you're referring to the broader picture, but in the specific case of Hopkins and Bloomberg's gift, the pattern-matching feels a bit off.

> Why do most such schools admit fewer students per capita than they did in 1950?

This is just one data point, but I'm a Hopkins alum, and the current freshman class is 30% larger than my freshman class was in 2001. That exceeds the growth rate of the US population over the same time period, although I'm not sure about the equivalent growth rate of college-freshman-aged population specifically.

Admissions growth requires new dorm construction, which typically involves a large donation for naming rights.

> Why are they so interested in discriminatory children-of-alumni admissions?

I think this effect is more pronounced in the Ivy League, partially due to the schools being much older. I only ever met a handful of legacy students at Hopkins.

Related to legacy admissions, from what I remember, the JHU alumni giving rate is a bit sub-par, which is a contributing factor to its endowment being smaller than peer schools'. There are even several cases of campus buildings going nameless for decades while awaiting a donor. One example, a building constructed in 1988 was called "New Engineering Building" until a donor was found in 2012. Another example, two dorms built in the early 80s are still called "Building A" and "Building B". (All the other dorms are named after alums...)

Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#114

Post by virmundi »

First off, great for giving the money.

> Together, the federal and state governments should make a new commitment to improving access to college and reducing the often prohibitive burdens debt places on so many students and families.

Why are we pushing college? We don't need everyone to have a college degree. We need plumbers, general contractors, electricians. We need the society to not look down on laborers. We need to get high school students into training programs for these careers. We need them to actually think about what they're doing on the job.

I went for a walk the other day. There is a woman on a ladder scrapping away at loose the paint. The house is about 100 years old. The wood was original. Even in places where a siding profile changed, the wood is probably 60 years old. She had no face mask. No 7mm plastic tarp 3 ft from the house. No water spray bottle. No paint remover that keeps the dust down. No low temp IR system to make peeling faster.

I told her it was lead paint. I said if she kept that up, she'd die (perhaps a bit of an exaggeration on one house, but if she does that at all of them, it will add up). I told her to get a P100 face mask. She said she'd tell her boss. This is basic EPA lead abatement training. There are free videos from the EPA and States (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NKJ6zuVvTY). Next day, lead chips on the ground. Her on the ladder as before.

We need to train the next generation of intelligent laborers. We don't need more people walking out with Comm. degrees because society told them to go to college.

Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#115

Post by gammateam »

maxxxxx wrote: post #60
gammateam wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes his perpetual low tax burden unquestionable when he releases his returns :) Its a non-zero sum game, why worry about such binary events of completely charitable or not.

" It makes his perpetual low tax burden unquestionable when he releases his returns :)" Trump has set the precedent that this is not necessary anymore.

I’m happy about that and I hope others follow suit.

Now for the political science: If you want to win brownie points with both the wage slaves and the “orange man bad” crowd that would be elated to see everything the opposite of Trump, you can jubilantly release your tax returns if they look good or relatable.

Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#116

Post by notSupplied »

manigandham wrote: post #87
bytematic wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

re: quality declining Source? I don't see this at all. re: sjws This is just a vocal minority demonized by certain political groups to stir up anger. Sad to see it's convincing people.

Considering academia is vastly one-sided politically, influences the minds of entire graduating generations, and there has been fallout in major companies and even laws passed, the issues around "social justice" are in fact real and much bigger than you may think.

"Wow, geez, the Republican party is so one sided, like, everyone there is a Republican!" That is such an utterly meaningless argument.

You can use that argument to challenge literally any well established fact regardless of it's merits. It is by this argument that increasingly extreme viewpoints have entered the political mainstream. E.g., "It's a problem that everyone in this room so one-sidedly believes the Holocaust is real! It's about time us Holocaust-deniers get a seat at the table, in fact, it'd only be fair for us to have HALF the seats at the table!"

Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#118

Post by srujnckn »

liftbigweights wrote: post #69
spikels wrote: post #33

Actual Reason: Bloomberg is planning to announce his presidential candidacy soon.

Agreed. Bloomberg rejoined the democratic party this year. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/10/michael-bloo... He also expressed his interest in running for president in 2020. This is obviously a PR move to win favor amongst the college age people and to gauge his prospects. I'm sure his team is going to poll people, especially students to see how this PR stunt goes and if the numbers look good, he'll dec…

Bloomberg has donated almost all profits from his company for the past few decades. Sure everythings technically a 'pr move' but this isnt some new evil plan or anything.

Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#119

Post by dlp211 »

marsrover wrote: post #15
Barrin92 wrote: post #8

First off, this is a great thing for Michael Bloomberg to do so props to him, but I think there needs to be a much broader discussion about moving away from college as a sort of 'eye of the needle' mechanism for upwards mobility in the United States. I'm German so my perspective may be biased, but over here you can pick up an apprenticeship, a dual university/work program and still earn comparable wages to college gr…

You can enter a trade school in the US and earn more than many college graduates. I think it’s more of a mindset problem than anything. College degrees give a person a baseline social status whereas trade schools are looked down on as low class.

Citation needed. This is one of those things that large swaths of the internet believe is true, but is filled with anecdotal evidence and not actual research.

Re: Why I’m Giving $1.8B for College Financial Aid

#120

Post by toastermoster »

yelloweyes wrote: post #32
kristianp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is just insane that 1.8B should be spent on just Johns Hopkins. This doesn't sound like anywhere near the most efficient way to help the most students who are missing out on places because the institution looks at their ability to pay. Does Bloomberg have an alterior motive to limit his donations to just his Alma Mater? Does he just want a wing of the library named after him or something? I'm frustrated reading th…

1.8B is not that much, really. at 50k tuition, that's only 36k people.

Or in perpetuity it could be about 4% of 1.8B per year. Which is only 360 students per class though (assuming a 4 year scholarship). Maybe that's 360 kids that wouldn't have otherwise been able to go to Johns Hopkins.
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