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

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

#171

Post by jedberg »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #104
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…

Well, how big were the business assets? Specifically, what percent of the business would have to be sold off? My reaction is very different for 5% versus 50%.

You usually can't sell off 5% of a small business. A sole proprietor is not going to issue stock for 5% and get any buyers.

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

#172

Post by tdeck »

AwGeezeRick wrote: post #157
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I think teaching is the sole purpose of a university. Research is ancillary to that, and if an organization only did research but didn't teach I would not say they get to call themselves a university any more.

You can disagree but that doesn't change anything. Most major universities are research institutions that also teach people, and hopefully bring up some through the ranks to further research/academia/human knowledge. Without research there would be nothing new to teach, Without research diseases wouldn't be cured. A lot of amazing things we have came from universities.

Medical research is a profit center for many universities, not a cost center. They get funded by grants from external entities like the NIH and get to skim off the top of each grant for overhead. As one outsized example, my alma mater got $583MM in NIH grants in one year. I'm not saying universities don't fund research from their own coffers, but it's important to understand how much funding comes from the government and from other sources.

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

#173

Post by potato3732842 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #79
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s incredibly difficult to structure these rules in a way that doesn’t discriminate against small businesses while not opening a giant loophole for the rich.

The reason is because small business owners are often, by any measure that doesn’t explicitly discount ownership of the business, actually rich.

How so? I know a guy who has literally millions of dollars tied up in shit that moves dirt and rocks and another mil tied up in some gravel pits.

The free cash he has, the house he lives in, the lifestyle he can afford is on par with "normal" white collar professionals (i.e. not people who get a bajillion monopoly bucks to implement linked list traversals for faang). He works 60hr weeks during construction season and has government agencies up his ass regularly (MHSA regulates him like he's running a pit mine, it's a huge f-ing farce). If you don't place insane value on being your own boss it's kind of a shitty life.

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

#174

Post by estebank »

analog31 wrote: post #144
hooo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should college be very expensive for rich people?

According to the old story, the New York Times asked a famous bank robber why he robbed banks. The answer: Because that's where the money is. The money for funding public and quasi-private (universities and hospitals) institutions has to come from somewhere. Making it equally affordable for everybody doesn't raise enough money to maintain operations. Same for funding the government. Granted, I think all of those inst…

> The money for funding public and quasi-private (universities and hospitals) institutions has to come from somewhere. Making it equally affordable for everybody doesn't raise enough money to maintain operations. Same for funding the government.

That's what taxes are for: you take proportionally more from people with more assets. I find the entire conversation about "not wanting my tax dollars to pay for some millionaire's kids' education", because those millionaires would end up paying the difference in taxes (under a fair system) than they do now.

That's without even considering the perverse incentives at play when a wealthy parent can use the payment or withholding of payment for education as a way to control their kids. Just because a parent is wealthy it doesn't necessarily mean that the kid would have access to those funds, or that explicit or implicit requirements that could be imposed to access those funds would be reasonable.

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

#175

Post by s1artibartfast »

switchbak wrote: post #165
s1artibartfast wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the entire point of these assessments to look at total assets, and not just annual income? I dont think this was an oversight or mistake. I think the expectation was that yes, people should sell assets if they have them .

Should they also cut their kidneys out and sell those too? For someone not in your system, the expectations that seem normal to you sound absolutely insane to others.

Nobody is forcing them to pay this price any more than you are forced to sell a kidney for a private jet.

Education costs are out of control, but you can still get a degree elsewhere for 10% the MIT cost, and have it paid for entirely by the government if you are low income

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

#176

Post by jedberg »

Or, crazy idea, have the government pay all tuition up front for everyone and then collect an extra .5% on your income tax for every semester you attend (or .33% for every quarter). Obviously you'd have to put some limits on what colleges can charge to get paid from that pool of money.

Then you can't go broke from debt because it's a percent of your income, but it's also not "free" to address those who have concerns with that.

You could apply it to all outstanding school loan balances too. Get your loans paid off in exchange for an extra 4% income tax.

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

#177

Post by glimshe »

LtWorf wrote: post #134
ummonk wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans earn more than Swiss people after taxes according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

And after paying insurance?

Most American workers have subsidized insurance from their job.

But how about if I ask "And after paying for mortgage?"

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

#178

Post by scarby2 »

jjeaff wrote: post #68
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 o…

> This defers taxes and allows the funds to be reinvested without tax.

All business funds are re-invested without tax, this is actually a good thing. Also for the majority of business owners taking a loan against your assets to pay yourself is a terrible idea, yes it may defer taxation but that tax will still come due and now you have to pay interest.

> Someone who owns their own business could also easily drop their salary significantly for the year prior to applying to college.

This could be a problem but i think the amount of difference this would make would be negligible - most people don't plan like this. You could also emancipate your 17 year old or have them live independently for a period of time (my friend actually deferred his entry and worked for a year in order to get a full ride)

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

#179

Post by analog31 »

estebank wrote: post #174
analog31 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the old story, the New York Times asked a famous bank robber why he robbed banks. The answer: Because that's where the money is. The money for funding public and quasi-private (universities and hospitals) institutions has to come from somewhere. Making it equally affordable for everybody doesn't raise enough money to maintain operations. Same for funding the government. Granted, I think all of those inst…

> The money for funding public and quasi-private (universities and hospitals) institutions has to come from somewhere. Making it equally affordable for everybody doesn't raise enough money to maintain operations. Same for funding the government. That's what taxes are for: you take proportionally more from people with more assets. I find the entire conversation about "not wanting my tax dollars to pay for some million…

Indeed, and I think we're not far apart on this. I would support funding of things like education and healthcare through progressive taxation, and making them free, or some nominal cost.

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

#180

Post by enjaydee »

jedberg wrote: post #176

Or, crazy idea, have the government pay all tuition up front for everyone and then collect an extra .5% on your income tax for every semester you attend (or .33% for every quarter). Obviously you'd have to put some limits on what colleges can charge to get paid from that pool of money. Then you can't go broke from debt because it's a percent of your income, but it's also not "free" to address those who have concerns…

Sounds similar to how it works here in Australia
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