Is this going to create some weird incentive for me, a parent of a college kid, to go 4 years unemployed traveling the world?
Honey, think about how much money the divorce will save us on tuition!
Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT
221–230 of 487 posts
Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an owner of a small family business, I have to pay close attention to making sure my salary and that of my other family members involved is "generally commensurate with our duties" or the IRS will be up my backside pretty quick. I obviously try to minimize it as much as possible, but if you drop it to something insignificant and the IRS notices, they'll adjust your income and expenses reported to reflect your non-…
Will they actually though? You hear a lot of anecdotes both ways and it is quite hard to get a good picture of the real situation.
One hypothesis for why you see both anecdotes is that the IRS is extremely good at filtering out these cases… when they bother to look into it. A lot probably get by without ever being audited, but the small percentage that do regret it.
Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT
#223Earlier 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 the US government will loan people very large sums to attend, which allows the universities to raise prices at will. The buyers are price-inelastic, which means that they want to go regardless of price, because they are surrounded by people that tell them that going to college is the right thing to do - and the more prestigious the better. College in the US would be a lot cheaper if the government didn't infl…
This is a common myth. This might explain why Harvard or MIT tuition is high but not the average college. Tuition mostly reflects staff costs and those have been going up due to Baumol's cost disease. Dentists, along with many other industries with its main cost being highly educated staff that haven't managed to scale production like online brokerages, have had a similar price increase since 1970.
Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should college be very expensive for rich people?
Because they can afford it. It's a redistribution tactic. You can also phrase it like this: college should be free for all to attend. Then, as long as you have a progressive tax scheme, the outcome is the same. Cheap for the poor, expensive for the rich.
Then are you suggesting buying anything should work like this?
Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT
#225Earlier 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.
Wow an actual topic on HN that I know about. I spent 3.5 years studying the history of UPenn - including writing my thesis in its history - and it is definitely not a land grant university.
Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT
#226This 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…
Similarly, I wonder how they’d consider shares of a non public company. Probably a common situation for people on HN, that take a pay cut to work as early employees at a startup.
Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT
#227A sham marriage (get a prenup if you want) is sufficient to have parents' income not counted by FAFSA.
Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "mistake" is that the assets themselves are the source of income. Sell them off, and the income goes away too. It's the equivalent of expecting the parents to use 100% of their income to put their kids into college, which is impossible.
IF I have stock and make $XX,XXX in dividends, how is that different? IF I have own apartments and make $XX,XXX in rent, how is that different? I think the idea is that Yes, the expectation is for people to make actual sacrifice before they qualify.
If this was inventory they were counting, sure. But you can’t sell part of a small business. Let’s say the parents own a restaurant, and the value of the land, building, and kitchen equipment is a few million. Do they sell an oven from the kitchen to put you through school? Sell the parking lot?
It’s an all or nothing thing. The business needs all its assets to function, and shouldn’t be considered any more than for its income potential.
Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the US government will loan people very large sums to attend, which allows the universities to raise prices at will. The buyers are price-inelastic, which means that they want to go regardless of price, because they are surrounded by people that tell them that going to college is the right thing to do - and the more prestigious the better. College in the US would be a lot cheaper if the government didn't infl…
This is a common myth. This might explain why Harvard or MIT tuition is high but not the average college. Tuition mostly reflects staff costs and those have been going up due to Baumol's cost disease. Dentists, along with many other industries with its main cost being highly educated staff that haven't managed to scale production like online brokerages, have had a similar price increase since 1970.
You’re going to have to qualify where you are talking about. Where I am, California, that only describes community colleges. Even state and especially UC have “invested” significantly in infrastructure improvements paid for with loans backed by expectations of tuition income, which has had an absurd effect on growing tuition far outside of inflation. Very little of your tuition at these schools goes towards teaching salaries.
Re: Undergraduates with family income below $200k will be tuition-free at MIT
#230Would have been lovely about 20 years ago. Oh well, no MIT for me.