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Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

news.mit.edu

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Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#11

Post by bko »

MIT is a great financial investment. There is financing already available (federal and private) so presumably if someone wanted to go they likely could. They may leave with debt however.

The median salary of an MIT graduate is 120k and the median debt is 12k, and less for lower income families (2023-2024):

$0 - $30,000 family income: $6,866

$30,001 - $75,000 family income: $9,132

$75,000+ family income: $12,500

Bumping this up to families making $200k seems really unnecessary and helps people that don't really need to help.

https://sfs.mit.edu/undergraduate-students/the-cost-of-atten...

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#12

Post by araes »

Started looking and found out there's some much worse, and far more obvious cases that need to implement these reforms. [1]

UPenn is THE most obvious. Sitting on a $20,000,000,000 endowment fund that went up +170% over 10 years while Philadelphia rots with drug use, poverty, and gun violence.

BTW, amazing site to be horrified by gun violence (and vaguely fascinated). Look upon the awfulness of Philadelphia. [2] Sitting in their safe little haven while East and South is wounding murder land with overlapping murder / wounding statistics. (12k from 2014-2023, 190/100000 urban) [3] Northwestern and the violence everywhere South in Chi-town is maybe a personal second choice. ($13,700,000,000, +74%, 26.9k, 280/100000 urban) [4][5]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit...

[2] (Guns, Philadelphia) https://www.thetrace.org/2023/02/gun-violence-map-america-sh...

[3] (Location, UPenn) https://www.google.com/maps/place/University+of+Pennsylvania...

[4] (Guns, Chicago) https://www.thetrace.org/2023/02/gun-violence-map-america-sh...

[5] (Location, Northwestern) https://www.google.com/maps/place/Northwestern+University/@4...

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#13

Post by nadermx »

araes wrote: post #12

Started looking and found out there's some much worse, and far more obvious cases that need to implement these reforms. [1] UPenn is THE most obvious. Sitting on a $20,000,000,000 endowment fund that went up +170% over 10 years while Philadelphia rots with drug use, poverty, and gun violence. BTW, amazing site to be horrified by gun violence (and vaguely fascinated). Look upon the awfulness of Philadelphia. [2] Sitti…

Thetrace.org is in fact pretty sweet looking. Interesting that philly seems to be shot to injur and next door camden seems to be shoot to kill.

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#14

Post by knowitnone »

Yeah, education should be free. Record all lectures and put them out there. Charge a small fee to view them if you must but lecturers repeating themselves is not my idea of a great use of their time. Yes, I know lots of lectures are already published.

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#15

Post by rahimnathwani »

bko wrote: post #11

MIT is a great financial investment. There is financing already available (federal and private) so presumably if someone wanted to go they likely could. They may leave with debt however. The median salary of an MIT graduate is 120k and the median debt is 12k, and less for lower income families (2023-2024): $0 - $30,000 family income: $6,866 $30,001 - $75,000 family income: $9,132 $75,000+ family income: $12,500 Bumpi…

  MIT is a great financial investment.
How do we know that is true? Among folks whom MIT would accept, do we know whether those who choose to attend MIT get a greater return on their investment (of time and money) compared to those who choose to not apply or not attend?

  families making $200k seems really unnecessary and helps people that don't really need to help
There are certainly families earning $200k who need help. $200k income for a family of 5 in San Francisco is different from $200k income for a family of 3 in rural Idaho.

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#16

Post by [deleted] »

bko wrote: post #11

MIT is a great financial investment. There is financing already available (federal and private) so presumably if someone wanted to go they likely could. They may leave with debt however. The median salary of an MIT graduate is 120k and the median debt is 12k, and less for lower income families (2023-2024): $0 - $30,000 family income: $6,866 $30,001 - $75,000 family income: $9,132 $75,000+ family income: $12,500 Bumpi…

[deleted]

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#17

Post by rahimnathwani »

knowitnone wrote: post #14

Yeah, education should be free. Record all lectures and put them out there. Charge a small fee to view them if you must but lecturers repeating themselves is not my idea of a great use of their time. Yes, I know lots of lectures are already published.

Watching non-interactive lectures is a small part of the overall experience. I'm not commenting on whether the experience is 'worth it', but assuming the only thing people get is the ability to watch lectures doesn't make the point.

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#18

Post by rty32 »

onename wrote: post #5
alsetmusic wrote: post #2

Awesome. Now let’s lower the bar further and do it everywhere. And then let’s keep doing more until students can pay their tuition with a summer job, like they could when our elders went to school. I’ll hold off on asking for higher education to be free, as the culture still pushes back on that. But a return to the former model would be most welcome.

Why not be more ambitious and aim for free?

It's never going to happen in a country where politicians try to convince people that college education == elitism, and a significant part of the population actually believes that

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#19

Post by dleink »

kevinventullo wrote: post #4

The article claims 80% of American households meet this threshold. I wonder what % of their incoming class (say restricted to Americans) meets this threshold.

Princeton has had a similar rule since 2001. Their current number is $100k. 25% of students pay nothing to attend. [0]

[0] https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/03/29/princeton-trustees... (go tigers)

Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT

#20

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

bko wrote: post #11

MIT is a great financial investment. There is financing already available (federal and private) so presumably if someone wanted to go they likely could. They may leave with debt however. The median salary of an MIT graduate is 120k and the median debt is 12k, and less for lower income families (2023-2024): $0 - $30,000 family income: $6,866 $30,001 - $75,000 family income: $9,132 $75,000+ family income: $12,500 Bumpi…

When I looked at MIT in 1990, tuition was fully covered but housing was BRUTAL.

More than twice my parents mortgage. I'm sure it's worse, now.

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