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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

#61

Post by MisterBastahrd »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #47
TheJoeMan wrote: post #32

This is a great step in the right direction. I can't speak directly for MIT, but there are issues with how these programs don't apply to parents with small family businesses. My parents had a small business, with my father taking home a salary of $XX,XXX. Duke University used the business assets to determine the EFC (expected family contribution) of literally 90% of the salary. Essentially saying to sell off the fami…

Why are such things in the US so complicated? Where I live, studying is much much cheaper for most professions,for everyone! That's the only fair way. Also, a set of well educated people pays itself back later in the form of mostly income and added value taxes, which provides money to keep studying for cheap for the next generation.

Because America is a place where people have been indoctrinated to believe that misery is the cost of freedom. It's a place where half the population would rather read your obituary or donate to your fundraiser than simply have a healthcare system that people can use in a timely manner without worrying about cost.

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

#62

Post by inglor_cz »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #47
TheJoeMan wrote: post #32

This is a great step in the right direction. I can't speak directly for MIT, but there are issues with how these programs don't apply to parents with small family businesses. My parents had a small business, with my father taking home a salary of $XX,XXX. Duke University used the business assets to determine the EFC (expected family contribution) of literally 90% of the salary. Essentially saying to sell off the fami…

Why are such things in the US so complicated? Where I live, studying is much much cheaper for most professions,for everyone! That's the only fair way. Also, a set of well educated people pays itself back later in the form of mostly income and added value taxes, which provides money to keep studying for cheap for the next generation.

American universities sell their students a lot of amenities that aren't really necessary for study. Not to mention the bloated admin class. You want to feel "in" when it comes to social justice? Here are your administrators that do the rituals of social justice as a full-time job, but they demand salaries.

As for amenities, back in Europe, many universities don't even have a campus, just a scattering of buildings all around the city, acquired randomly as the school grew (that includes dorm buildings, often quite far from one another). You will spend some extra time commuting among them, but the university saves money - and, indirectly, you too.

Getting from dorm to lectures usually took me about 30 minutes each way - on foot, then subway, then on foot again.

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

#63

Post by jknoepfler »

WorkerBee28474 wrote: post #25
dleink wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Approximately 60% of American households earn less than $100K. That's quite a difference in relative size.

Households with earners in their 20's and early 30's don't tend to have a lot of children of university age. One would want to use the median income of households with university-aged children.

(Median income by age rises sharply from 20->40, then flatlines... the median age of a mother is around 27?)

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

#64

Post by clusterhacks »

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.

Use College Navigator for these types of questions:

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=MIT&s=all&id=166683#...

That link says 72% of incoming freshman in 2022-2023 received financial aid. Also has a full-time beginning net cost average of just under $22,000 in 2022-2023.

It's not a perfect source of data, but there is enough on College Navigator to let you dig into it a bit and compare to other schools.

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

#65

Post by PittleyDunkin »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #55
nuancebydefault wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are such things in the US so complicated? Where I live, studying is much much cheaper for most professions,for everyone! That's the only fair way. Also, a set of well educated people pays itself back later in the form of mostly income and added value taxes, which provides money to keep studying for cheap for the next generation.

Because education is largely an afterthought, and universities primarily compete on entertainment and prestige. High cost and exclusivity is the entire point. A university open to all with a fraction of the price would be a poorly ranked one in every competitive measure.

> universities primarily compete on entertainment and prestige.

I like to call this "resort-style education".

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

#66

Post by qeternity »

itsoktocry wrote: post #56
rs999gti wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Why is it UPENN's responsibility to solve these issues? This is Philadelphia's problem, the university is just a business operating in the city.

> Why is it UPENN's responsibility to solve these issues? Who's responsibility is it? Have you seen how the government operates? Why wouldn't UPENN want to help solve it?

You're asking the wrong question: why would they?

How much have you contributed to Philly's woes?

Probably nothing, because it doesn't benefit you.

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

#67

Post by tdeck »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #40
tdeck wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if a university has money, learning there should be free? Not an unreasonable proposition. The purpose of the university is ostensibly to provide an education, not to continue hoarding more and more money.

> purpose of the university is ostensibly to provide an education One of the purposes. They’re also centres for learning and research and repositories of knowledge.

If they were spending the money on those things, this might be an argument. But they're not spending it; they're hoarding it.

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

#68

Post by jjeaff »

TheJoeMan wrote: post #32

This is a great step in the right direction. I can't speak directly for MIT, but there are issues with how these programs don't apply to parents with small family businesses. My parents had a small business, with my father taking home a salary of $XX,XXX. Duke University used the business assets to determine the EFC (expected family contribution) of literally 90% of the salary. Essentially saying to sell off the fami…

I can understand why they might do this. Many people who own a small business underpay themselves significantly and use the extra funds on the business to build up assets. This defers taxes and allows the funds to be reinvested without tax. They might even take out loans on those business assets. The same way the wealthy will pay themselves a tiny salary and just live off the asset value of their stock. Someone who owns their own business could also easily drop their salary significantly for the year prior to applying to college.

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

#69

Post by alephnerd »

Spivak wrote: post #48
rs999gti wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Why is it UPENN's responsibility to solve these issues? This is Philadelphia's problem, the university is just a business operating in the city.

UPenn is a land-grant institution, they are not "just a business" they were given land and money specifically to serve the public good. They're why we have engineering degrees, the government specifically wanted institutions that taught practical marketable skills and to do research in those fields.

> UPenn is a land-grant institution

It isn't.

Despite the name, it's actually a private university.

Penn State is Pennsylvania's land grant university.

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

#70

Post by ElevenLathe »

itsoktocry wrote: post #56
rs999gti wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Why is it UPENN's responsibility to solve these issues? This is Philadelphia's problem, the university is just a business operating in the city.

> Why is it UPENN's responsibility to solve these issues? Who's responsibility is it? Have you seen how the government operates? Why wouldn't UPENN want to help solve it?

OK, but they do exist to educate people, and have a comically large endowment to do it with that only keeps growing. I guess their plan is to grow the endowment until all human beings everywhere can get full ride UPenn scholarships?
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